More than a character, Bowden is a man of character

It was late one night along Interstate 4, near the turn-off for U.S. 27. Charlie Barnes was behind the wheel and Bobby Bowden was in the passenger seat, headed toward another stop on the annual Florida State University booster club circuit.

Barnes, head of the Seminole boosters, was Bowden's regular chauffeur on trips like this. The format was almost always the same - starting with a rubber chicken dinner where FSU fans would crowd in to meet Bowden, their legendary football coach. He'd give a speech, sign autographs, shake hands and pose for pictures.

Between gatherings, there was a lot of time to kill.

Like on this night ...

"We were driving along and started talking about the kind of music we listened to when we were growing up," Barnes said. "We never talked about religion specifically, but we did talk a lot about church, and I was saying how I liked the old-time hymns. Bobby said he did too.

"Well, somebody had given me a Statler Brothers CD where they were singing those old gospel hymns. We never listened to music in the car, but Coach said to go ahead and put it in, so I did. Next thing I know, we're rolling down I-4, just the two of us, singing 'When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder.' We were bellowing it out. That night will always mean the most to me."

Bowden's 34-year run as head football coach at Florida State will end Friday after his Seminoles play West Virginia in the Gator Bowl. People know about his 388 victories and two national championships.

When you ask those closest to him for their best stories, though, they don't talk about football. They talk about a man who is playful, casual, and yet competitive. They say he makes friends easily and never lets them go. They tell you of someone who is loyal, caring.

They talk about the lives he touched.

"He's almost not real," Barnes said.

Can I get an autograph?

Gene Deckerhoff is the play-by-play man for the Seminoles radio network, and he has hosted Bowden's television show since 1981. He has the duty of interviewing Bowden after tremendous wins or those wide-right heartaches against Miami. He said Bowden never changes.

"He's as genuine as anyone I've ever met," Deckerhoff said. "And Bobby Bowden is the reason I was able to do NFL football."

That happened in 1989 when Deckerhoff had an offer to become the voice of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers radio broadcasts. He wanted to stay with FSU as well, though. That would have meant taping the TV show after Seminoles games at odd hours - maybe 2 or 3 in the morning sometimes.

He said Bowden thought about it for a few seconds, shrugged, and told Deckerhoff to just elbow him if he fell asleep.

"Bobby was pretty well established on a national level by then," Deckerhoff said. "How many coaches would have done that for me?"

That's the genius behind Bowden. There are hundreds of stories about phone calls he made to desperately sick people that he never knew, or letters he wrote to those who needed a kind word.

"You'll never find a person of (his) integrity and character again (in coaching)," longtime FSU team chaplain Clint Purvis said. "His type of coach is a dinosaur now. He is near extinction."

There was another booster club trip, this one to Clewiston in the southern part of the state. Barnes and Bowden arrived around 2 a.m. to the mom-and-pop motel. The room keys were scotch-taped to their doors.

A few minutes later, there was a knock.

Sheriff's deputies were waiting outside.

"They had been setting up for a drug sting," Barnes said. "But when they saw it was Coach Bowden, they came over to get an autograph."

Salad dressing stains

Sue Hall has been his secretary since 1979.

"He had been through two secretaries in three seasons and wanted some stability," she said. "When I went in to interview he looked me in the face and said, 'I'm lookin' for a mama to help me here because I'm their daddy.' I told him I had raised three kids and he said that was fine. I was hired."

She was the keeper of the gate to Bowden's office, and among her many jobs was to censor his mail - send him the good letters, throw out the bad ones - and fetch him a salad for lunch. It was a nice idea, except Bowden often liked to load it down with meat, cheese, eggs and gobs of dressing.

So one day, a national reporter comes by with former sports information director Wayne Hogan. Sue had delivered the salad as ordered, and Bowden waved the reporter in, rising from behind the desk to shake his hand.

Bowden was barefoot. His FSU coaching shirt had salad dressing stains. And in the middle of the interview, a staffer came into the office to trim Bowden's hair.

"(The reporter) looks at me during all this and thinks he's been had," Hogan said. "I tell him no, this goes on around here every day. Every day was a treat. That was the door to the college football world right there."

In more ways than one, sometimes.

Billy Smith of the Florida Highway Patrol has been at Bowden's elbow on the sideline since his arrival in Tallahassee - close enough that he, too, was soaked when players dumped the contents of a water bucket on Bowden to celebrate the 1993 national championship.

Smith recalled the time Sue had to tell Bowden about one of the bad letters. A gambler who lost big on an FSU game wrote to Bowden, promising to kill him at the Seminoles' next game - which happened to be at South Carolina.

"We had 20 plainclothes officers assigned to be with him on the sideline," Smith said. "We kept it quiet, though - Coach Bowden didn't tell anyone, not even his staff."

After the game, a police car backed up close to the FSU locker room. Smith told Bowden not to pose for photos, no autographs, no waves to the crowd, and no hellos to anyone. More than 100 uniformed officers surrounded Bowden on both sides as he ran to the car.

"If Coach was worried about it, he never let on," he said.

More than end of an era

Deckerhoff stopped by Bowden's office before Christmas to pick up a package. He saw three moving vans parked outside, being loaded with Bowden's things. There was the picture of him with Billy Graham. There was an autographed photo of Bear Bryant. There were trophies and plaques, testaments to good times and a career of achievement.

"You see that and the finality hits you," Deckerhoff said.

Bowden wanted to coach one more season but was told by the schools' administration that he'd have to relinquish most of his power and control of the program he built. It couldn't have worked that way. At age 80, Bowden walks away as the second-winningest coach in college football history. More than an era will end.

"When I was watching (University of Florida coach) Urban Meyer the other day talking about the stress and the hours, Coach Bowden used to be that way," Sue Hall said. "We worked hard. We used to say that you'd better be there or you'd better be dead.

"But Coach always had time for everyone. That's what made him different. He'd sign anything for anybody. He never turned a church down that asked him to speak. He'd get up on Sunday morning and drive two hours to Blountstown, or Sneads, or Thomasville, Ga., and speak at those churches. He walked the walk."

And when the roll is called up yonder, walking the walk will outshine two national titles every time.