Bobby Bowden‘s loyalty and connection to Florida State is unmistakable. Sometimes we can easily forget he got his coaching start at West Virginia. Next week the legendary coach will return to Morgantown for West Virginia’s homecoming festivities. Bowden and his wife, Ann, will serve as honorary marshals for the homecoming parade.
West Virginia gave Bowden his first head coaching gig in 1970. He stayed there through 1975 before accepting a job at Florida State to be closer to his Alabama roots. Bowden reflected on his time at West Virginia this week and discussed how coaches didn’t necessarily have multi-year contracts at the time.
“They could call you in after any year and say ‘we’re going to bring somebody else in.’ Now they didn’t do me that way,” Bowden explained, per West Virginia’s athletics website. “They were really good to me at West Virginia. I felt like I learned how to coach there. If I could have gone through those six years there again I think I really could have done a lot better because I made a lot of mistakes. So I go to Florida State and I had learned and it really helped me down there.”
Bowden was hired by Florida State in 1976, where he would later lead the Seminoles to the ACC, win 12 ACC titles and two national championships.
