Full Bobby Bowden FSU Hall of Fame Speech

i wasn't here tonight if i were not here tonight i would have been asleep by i had two hours two and a half hours of sleep by now people ask me what it's like to be retired well i get up at 12 30. then it's time for my nap but i do want to thank the selection committee for nominating and and uh allowing me to get into the hall of fame with these wonderful people that are already in it and uh the ones that were inducted tonight uh naturally got to thank people for being here and first i'd like to thank my wife ann and raised my family while i was coaching i coached 57 years i met her when she was 14. i waited till she was 16 for a marathon that's uh that's been 50 happy years ago which is not bad out of 63. uh yeah i graduated from college in 52 and i became an assistant coach in 63-54 at howard college and i became the head football coach athletic director and basketball coach at south georgia college now some of those guys are still y'all stand up over there man this is the first team i coached right here y'all stand up i got i got into the national coaches hall of fame about six seven years ago they were right there they were sitting right there they got introduced you know just like anybody else would of course half of them older than me but uh i was 25 and some of them had already been in the service you know but some of them were older than i was but uh i'll tell you a little funny story about this they decide like this past summer we had our 57th year reunion and uh so about after i i had coached there and been gone for about 25 years they called me and said they wanted to have a reunion i said okay we'll do that so coach you'll come back to douglas georgia we'll have your room for you and your wife and we'll get all the boys to come back and we'll have a reunion so we did they they set everything up well ann and i couldn't they will come in on friday stay saturday and then go home sunday so and i couldn't get there friday afternoon uh because something that's i got in that uh that night so in and i drove in that night now again hadn't seen those guys in 25 years and uh we registered and i said are the south georgia boys here oh yes they're here they're back there by the pool i said well thank you so i'll go out get my car and i drive around the motel it was just a two-story motel back in those days you know we pull in there and we hear a lot of noise out there behind the uh the uh hotel there at the swimming pool i said let me go see if that's my boys so i walked back there and i looked out there and there's a you know there's 50 60 70 people there having a good time i walked back to ann i said dan that's not them that's a bunch of old men that's true that's true story now i don't i don't i don't know if you noticed uh when they showed that when they started that film on me they showed some early shots of the oklahoma game of 1976 my first year and we hadn't won a game up to that time now gene mcdowell and billy sexton and jim gladden and mickey i forgot mickey one here then at the time were you mickey wasn't here at that time so anyway when you hadn't got a good ball club you try to warm up purdy you know you try to you try to you got to do something fancy to show people boy he's a good coach so i don't know did you notice us winding out on the field in that film you know so that's so man i you know my my boys had to feel boy they why they look you know uh oklahoma come out there in one pile you know so this really happened this really happened you know how coaches before a game meet out in the center of the field and shake hands unless it's steve spurrier but you know you know how coaches meet out in the middle of field show before the game so barry now we haven't won a game switzer is undefeated number one in the nation won the national championship the year before on about an 18-game winning streak so he's trying to think of something nice to say to me you know wait wait wait what a game he's he's fixing to kill me and he he wants to think of something nice to say and he says he saw our kids warming up he said boy that those kids look look at them how they do that boy your coaches really do a good job with them i said coach i'll swap my coaches for your players that's true that's true uh my you know i coach as i said a coach 57 years i was here 34 years i have a favorite year i have a favorite year you know it's hard to do you got that many years sure you don't prefer one team or other and i don't but i do have a favorite year you know what it was 1977. that was fun i think gene and them were here with us that time because that's when i just got the job as my second year and we hadn't been a bowl in years we hadn't been nationally ranked in years and uh hadn't had winning season in years and and my first year we didn't have a winning season but that second year we won 10 ball games played in our first bowl beat texas tech and i think we ended up nationally ranked 14th in the nation now that i believe out of all the years i coast even the national championships that's still my favorite year you know that's jimmy i guess jimmy jordan woodham years i believe am i right on that yeah memory's gone now all right now the next thing i want to mention uh is uh the most significant win i believe we had in the years that we had here uh i was fortunate enough to win over 300 games at florida state you know i can't even remember that i mean i can't even believe that you know my my career just went so darn fast but uh out of uh out of all the games we won uh the one i thought was that's been the most meaningful to florida state university history is nebraska in 1980. now get the picture get the picture uh at that time florida state did not have a big name with the big people you know and uh so we we had opened the season we won a first game when a second game won our third game and then the third game our center tore his knee up and he's out for the year so we put our second team center in there well five plays later he sprains his ankle he's out he can't walk now we don't have a center and uh but but we had worked our right guard our starting right guard we had practiced him snapping the ball just in case that ever happens if you notice you hardly ever lose centers you lose running backs you lose linebackers but you hardly ever lose a center we lost two you thinking quarterbacks are valuable huh who you think gives them a dead gumball every every dad gum play that center starts every play but anyway so anyway anyway this guard starts the game it's the fourth quarter we're beating them 40 something to nothing so we win anyway you know we win anyway and so then we go back next time next week we're going to play miami in miami and this time miami wasn't very good either this back when either one was very good you know and i think we were probably 10 12 point favorites well that gummy we okay this guard's gonna have to start sunny but he'll be okay you know we'll beat miami you know so we go down there and play them we fumble ten times just between the snap of the quarterback and the center we fumble ten of them they get five of them they upset us ten the nine you know the next week we're going to play the number three team in the nation nebraska at nebraska now back in those days people don't beat nebraska out there now lately they've been getting getting on them a little bit but you you just don't beat them right there you know so we just lost the game ten to nine in miami and i hadn't even got a dadgum center you know and i remember getting our coaches to god i said man we got two centers on our freshman team and uh one of them is a senator we'd signed out of ohio about six three about 2 35 and and a big nice physical kid now listen uh 632 335 back in uh 80 that was big you can't even play now unless you're 300. on the line of scrimmage if you ain't 300 you might well forget it you know well anyway but he who had this big center from cincinnati then we had a we had a walk-on kid from savannah georgia you know non-scholarship and uh well we had no choice coaches get those two centers and work them and work them equally give them give him five snaps and give him five then give him five and just at the end of the week we're gonna decide who starts so they did that thursday rolled around all right coaches who are we gonna we're gonna start center we all agreed that walk-on they walk on whatever fumble he never misses a snap the other kid he can block you know but dad give me a fumble every fifth time so we got to go with this boy that can snap the ball you know so we go up to nebraska and of course they're heavy favorites and we uh they got us 14 nothing first quarter it's going they're going to beat us pretty good you know 14 or nothing in the first quarter well we hang on and we kick a field goal right before the half go out 14-3 we come out the second half and uh our defense starts really playing good we we kind of shut them down we finally eked him a you know we kicked four field goals that day and we upset them they they had them all on one yard line that showed in that film while ago they had the ball on our three-yard line first down they fumbled we got it that's the game you know but that was probably one of the biggest wins at florida state ever i thought it put us on the map people began to say who is this florida state look what they did up there at nebraska see now of course after that we'd be a lot of folks we'd be notre dame we'd be michigan we'd be everybody you know they beat us too they they beat us too but we whipped them too you know and uh but but that ball game meant uh so much uh now that that that that walk on center i was turning out was jerry coleman i gave him a full scholarship the next monday i gave him a full scholarship he never played another down the other the other guys got well he couldn't beat him out you know and uh and uh but what what a what a great young kid now listen uh i'm on a i'm gonna i'm gonna finish by reading a poem that i read when i got into the alabama hall of fame years ago but this point means a whole lot to me i think you'll enjoy it talks about hall of fames to have your name up there is greater yet by far than all the hall of fames down here and every man-made star this crown on this crowd on earth they soon forget the heroes of the past they cheer like mad until you fall that's how long you last i tell you friend i would not trade my name however small if written there beyond the stars in that celestial hall for any famous name on earth a glory that they share i'd rather be an unknown here and have my name up there you

Channel: Florida State Seminoles

Views: 52,686

Keywords: Florida State, Seminoles, FSU, Noles, Seminoles.com, flstate, bobby bowden, fsu hall of fame, football

Id: 1sutdiaqEhI

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 04 2012