Duffy remembers when the last second ticked off the clock on January 1st 1994 and FSU had won it's first national championship. Duffy breathed a sigh of relief and thought, "well, I can die a happy man now that we have won a national championship." Duffy won't rehash the career of Bobby Bowden and all the accomplishments he's achieved over 34 years as FSU coach. Yesterday's sad ending to a legendary career was inevitable and would have happened next year as well. Because Duffy believes that Bobby Bowden never believed he would quit, never believed that the school would nudge him out and would have been perfectly happy to die on the sidelines at age 90. As much as Duffy loves and respects Bobby Bowden and admires him for his character, faith and what he has done for FSU and college football, Duffy believes this is a classic case of a man not knowing when to quit. Hindsight is always 20-20 but at the end of the 2000 season is when Bowden should have retired. His blunder in hiring his son as offensive coordinator Duffy believes is the primary reason FSU football started a decade long decline. Bowden's refusal to face up that he had made a mistake with his son and failure to see an overall decline in the quality of recruits led to FSU becoming an average team in the ACC and one that could not match up with UF and Miami.
Over Duffy's long business career he has known CEO's (and that is how Bowden saw himself, as a CEO) bring a company up from nothing to a position of prominence in the industry, then surround themselves with sycophants, lose touch with the changes in the market and take their eye off the ball. At some point the Board of Directors says, "enough is enough" and the most surprised person in the company is the former CEO as he is led out the door. Examples abound of athletes who stayed long past their prime as even Michael Jordan realized he couldn't hang with the young guns who ran past him on the court. Bowden would have coached till he dropped dead on the field which is how Joe Paterno will probably go out. He could not understand or accept until the very end that the man looking in the mirror every morning was the one responsible for FSU's decline from a football superpower to an average team in an average conference. The CEO is responsible for his company, the Captain is responsible for his ship. When either fails, the company declines and the ship sinks.
Duffy believes it was time, past time, for Bobby Bowden to retire. It's too bad that he couldn't have gone out in a more dignified way, but dadgummit he brought it upon himself. And Duffy fervently hopes that at some point Bowden realizes that unpleasant fact.
Bobby's faith and interests in travel, military history and golf should occupy his time in retirement. And his accomplishments at FSU won't ever be forgotten. Duffy looks forward to a new coaching team leading FSU back to being a national power starting in 2010.
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