Bowden enjoying life away from coaching

By George Diaz | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted October 1, 2002

Terry Bowden jogs through Central Park every Friday afternoon free of yesterday's misery.

No boosters are conspiring against him. Disgruntled fans aren't cursing his name as he breezes by the eclectic menagerie of roller skaters, a batch of lazy rowboats along the water's edge and a four-man hard-court volleyball match during the four-mile journey.

He pauses, then reflects: This is the funnest job you ever can imagine.

The man goes to New York on Friday mornings, charms audiences with commentary accented by a Southern twang as a college football studio analyst on Saturdays and then returns home to Orlando on Sunday mornings.

It has been four years now since influential Auburn University boosters forced his resignation as football coach. Bulldozed by good-'ol-boy Southeastern Conference politics, Bowden has re-invented himself as an engaging chatterbox on network TV.

Paired with John Saunders on ABC Sports every Saturday, Bowden gets in a handful of 20- to 30-second sound bites during halftime cut-ins, spending the rest of his time watching snippets of games on studio monitors.

The TV safety net for coaches isn't unique, of course. Bill Parcells, Jerry Glanville, Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Green, among many others, have managed to engage or enrage us on weekends. But most of these guys seem to have a hidden agenda behind their glossy-cheek smile: They want back into coaching, and TV is a convenient way of staying plugged in with a small circle of influential associates.

Despite intermittent pangs, Bowden doesn't appear to have the look of someone wistfully pining for a phone call from a frustrated athletic director.

"I have no anticipation of going back to coaching, although you can never say never," Bowden says. "The biggest thing that people don't understand is that I'm a normal person with the same life deals that they have."

"Normal" for Bowden is a family with five children 12 or younger (12, 11, 10, 6 and 4). The five kids are scattered throughout four schools. Do the math, then catch your breath: T-ball practice, dance recitals, voice lessons, soccer games, PTA meetings, science fairs, car pools, doctor's appointments.

Bowden doesn't have meticulous game plans any more, just a flexible daily schedule written in erasable felt pens and pinned to a refrigerator door. Wife Shyrl plans the day's events around the schedule of children shuttling in and out of their home in College Park.

Terry pitches in as much as possible, a striking contrast to the 15 years he spent coaching college football. Football time usually superceded family time, leaving Bowden out of the mix of activities that most fathers embrace during their children's formative years.

It is a familiar theme played out for decades by the Bowdens. Blessed with a few more X's and O's than the rest of us, the Bowdens are now into their second generation of football as the family business. Bobby Bowden is the patriarchal role model for a batch of sons that includes Tommy (coach at Clemson), Jeff (an assistant to dad at Florida State) and Terry.

"I've been the son whose dad never saw him play a football game," Terry says. "On the other hand, I come from a very unique family. Not only was I a head football coach in college, but so was my father, so was my brother, and my other brother will be in a year or two.

"I've always said we Bowdens would make good dads, not great dads. I don't know how long I can be a great dad. Make sure you write that I say that tongue in cheek."

The opportunity to upgrade from good to great did not come without significant adversity. Terry Bowden always was a bit of an obsessive over-achiever, striving for the highest grade-point average when he attended West Virginia, running for "the president of this, the president of that," in the words of his dad. At West Virginia, Bowden lettered two years as a running back (1977-78), held a 3.65 GPA in accounting and graduated Magna Cum Laude.

As a football coach, Bowden continued on his exemplary fast track. He helped jump-start programs at Salem College in West Virginia and Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., where he helped a Division III non-scholarship program become a title-contending Division I-AA school before leaving with a 46-22-1 record.

Bowden took over at Auburn in 1993, with the program on NCAA probation because of transgressions committed by previous coach Pat Dye's staff. Bowden led the Tigers to an 11-0 record in '93, becoming the first first-year coach in NCAA Division I-A history with a perfect season. (Miami's Larry Coker became the second last season after leading the Hurricanes to the national title.)

Bowden's Auburn winning streak extended to 20 games -- an NCAA record for the start of a Division I-A career -- before the Tigers finished 9-1-1 in '94. Back-to-back 8-4 seasons followed in '95 and '96 before a 10-3 record and the SEC West title in 1997.

Still, Bowden didn't have any Auburn roots, was a bit too brash for folks who preferred their coach with a slice of humble Southern pie and never quite endeared himself to boosters who were extremely influential on campus and beyond. Many point to Bobby Lowder -- a millionaire businessman and influential university trustee -- as the man who put the tightest squeeze on Bowden.

A 1-5 start in 1998 -- Auburn's worst start since 1952 -- gave the disgruntled faction enough leverage to expedite Bowden's exit. He resigned less than a year after signing a 7-year contract extension worth $800,000 a year in base salary and benefits.

Bowden doesn't care to delve into details of how it all unraveled. Though obviously bearing some scars, he says he doesn't look back in anger. "I had 14 great years as a head coach, and I had one half -year of a bad experience," Bowden says. "And I don't want to go back to coaching just for that. That's the wrong reason to go back. I don't want to go back into coaching just to rewrite the way it ended.

"Sometimes the CEO get removed because the stockholders aren't happy. You don't take it too personally."

Stuck without a job but blessed with a chatty personality suited for TV, Bowden parlayed a few fill-in stints he had done for ABC in previous seasons during bowl-season coverage into a full-time gig.

Trying to earn respect among viewers, Bowden consciously looked for little ways to take a dig at dad. It didn't help that the 'Noles were undefeated in his first year as an analyst, then didn't lose a game until the national championship the following year.

Since then, things have evened out a bit for the Seminoles, who play Terry's Clemson Tigers on Thursday night.

"Every now and then, he'll downplay us like you're supposed to do but it doesn't bother me," Bobby Bowden says.

Despite the long-sleeved shirt and tie (decorated with little footballs), Bowden brings a casual charm to Saturday afternoons. On occasion, he peeks out the studio with large windows to see the buzz of Times Square, where on a recent afternoon an extremist religious group was blaring about injustice in the world.

He also monitors a T-ball game on the phone with Shyrl, noting the progress of Terry Jr., 4, who managed to find second base last week after reaching first and then going back home on his first trip to the plate.

Every now and then -- with ABC cutting into the studio for up to five halftime shows on Saturday -- Bowden gets in a quick-hit sound bite before commercial break.

"He brings a lot of energy and enthusiasm and a coaches perspective because he's lived it," says Tim Weinkauf, an ABC Sports producer who works with Bowden on Saturdays.

Network executives, obviously smitten by Bowden's approach, recently awarded him with a two-year contract extension.

Once Bowden decided that his broadcasting career had potential, the family decided two years ago to move to Orlando -- good weather, good airport, good family community -- with the help of local businessman Jimmy Hewitt. Within a day, Hewitt's sister-in-law helped the Bowdens find a home, nestled along the seventh fairway of the Country Club of Orlando. It has the lived-in charm of a large family home -- an SUV and portable basket in the driveway, a basketball in the garage, underneath large hanging banners for Florida State University and ABC Sports.

"We feel like we made a perfect decision," Bowden says.

There are no complaints from his better half. Shyrl Bowden spent her youth and teen-age years moving from country to country because her father worked for the State Department. The stability that Orlando brings is a comforting touch, as well as not dealing with the emotional ebb and flow of college football Saturdays.

"I was sick every Saturday," she says. "Football wasn't fun. I love college football but not the idea of your job depending on winning or losing."

Now she says, her husband wins every Saturday. The perfect world of Terry Bowden includes a four-day schedule of homework/research on the Internet, a relatively new venture for a man who never turned on a computer while coaching college football.

There usually is time for golf once a week, and enough leisure breaks on the road to enjoy the guilty pleasures of a New York restaurant, the four-mile jog on Fridays, and perhaps a visit to Greenwich Village, the Museum of Natural History or a Broadway show.

"New York is a people town," Bowden says. "You can watch people every minute. A guy playing with a dog, or boxing with a wall or dancing with a broom. This week I saw a guy dancing the entire time he was sweeping, It looked like an exercise routine.

"If I go back to coaching, I would never trade the years I've done this."

Bowden laughs, comfortable in a golf shirt and shorts. He is dressed for work on this weekday afternoon.

At 46, life is good.

"I used to say I wanted to be the next Bobby Bowden," he says. "Now I just want to be the next Lee Corso."

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