With FSU’s Mike Norvell shutting out the media, we miss Bobby Bowden more than ever | Commentary

We miss you, Bobby.

We miss you, Bobby Bowden.

We miss you now greater than ever.

We miss you not only for all of the victories, the nationwide championships or the larger-than-life aura you dropped at the sidelines, however for the best way you made faculty soccer really feel prefer it was Thanksgiving dinner at grandma’s home.

You made us really feel like we belonged, like Florida State soccer was only one large, blissful household the place all people— followers, reporters, even rival coaches — had a spot at your bountiful desk of kindness. You didn’t simply coach a soccer crew; you cultivated a tradition of openness, heat and connection. You weren’t simply one of many biggest faculty soccer coaches who ever lived; you had been the best faculty soccer ambassador who ever lived.

And now it feels just like the final remaining vestige of your spirit is gone.

Bobby, we discovered only a few days in the past that present FSU coach Mike Norvell has closed follow to the media for the primary time. It’s most likely not a giant deal to followers, but it surely must be. You see, it’s a tragic day as a result of it as soon as appeared like Norvell was strolling in your footsteps.

Norvell was one of many few left who stored his practices open, however now he’s turning into similar to the remainder of the lengthy checklist of secretive, paranoid faculty soccer coaches who deal with reporters like spies and deal with followers and boosters like ATM machines. We thought Norvell was on his approach to being the subsequent Bobby Bowden, however now he’s turning into the subsequent Jimbo Fisher.

Bobby, when you had been nonetheless right here, possibly you’d sit down with coach Norvell and inform him some tales. You had been at all times good at that, spinning yarns that by some means, by the tip, made all people really feel good. Possibly you’d advise him that simply because he completed with an traditionally unhealthy 2-10 document doesn’t imply he wants to vary who he’s at his core. Possibly you can inform him what you used to say while you had been requested why you opened up your program to the media.

Bear in mind what you mentioned, Bobby?

You mentioned one thing to the impact of, “Ain’t no person ever proved to me that opening up our practices and locker room to the media ever value us one victory.”

Possibly, too, you can remind coach Norvell of a time when hometown reporters weren’t the enemy; they had been a part of this system. They had been the conduit; the bridge between Florida State soccer and Florida State followers. They introduced the magical tales of your program and your gamers to each house from Sopchoppy to Pahokee.

You’ll be glad to know, Bobby, that the reporters who lined you again then are having a reunion in Tallahassee this summer time to rejoice that golden period: a time when FSU soccer wasn’t simply probably the most dynastic packages within the nation; it was one of many friendliest.

I’m certain these retired, outdated FSU beat writers will inform the tales about you and your program over a couple of beers on the 4th Quarter Bar and Grille on Monroe Avenue.

They’ll inform the story about when different coaches had been shutting down entry to the media, you continue to had your “Breakfast with Bobby” pow-wows with writers and broadcasters at a neighborhood resort each Sunday morning after FSU house video games. They’ll recall how — proper in the course of consuming your eggs and bacon — you’d really diagram well-known performs just like the legendary “puntrooskie” for the media by utilizing salt and pepper shakers, forks and spoons, espresso cups and ketchup bottles.

Or possibly they’ll inform the story in regards to the out-of-town Auburn reporter who was in Tallahassee to do some preview tales earlier than the Tigers had been enjoying your Seminoles within the Sugar Bowl one yr. You even invited that out-of-town reporter into follow and in addition allowed him a last-minute interview with considered one of your gamers within the participant’s dorm room.

After which while you bumped into Auburn coach Pat Dye throughout a Nike teaching junket in Jamaica that summer time, Dye playfully chastised you in his slow-talking gravelly voiced southern twang.

It most likely sounded one thing like this: “Baahbuh … now why you go ‘n spoil my writers like that? Now they’s askin’ about how come I don’t open up follow and let ‘em in such as you do. Wantin’ to know why I ain’t sittin’ right down to breakfast with ‘em neither. You settin’ an actual unhealthy instance, Baahbuh … actual unhealthy.”

Truly, Bobby, you had been setting an actual good instance.

An ideal instance.

You knew that followers didn’t simply need a crew to root for; they needed to really feel like a part of your loved ones. They needed to know the tales behind the gamers, the battles fought in follow, the little moments and tidbits that by no means make it on an ESPN broadcast.

You gave them that, Bobby. You invited us in, made us really feel welcome. You let reporters write tales that made folks fall in love together with your groups, your gamers and, largely, you.

You at all times understood one thing that as we speak’s coaches simply can’t fathom:

The extra you give, the extra you obtain.

I firmly consider you gained FSU’s first nationwide title as a result of not solely did the native media respect the best way you handled them; so did the nationwide media. Bear in mind?

Bear in mind how your Seminoles misplaced an in depth recreation to fellow unbeaten Notre Dame close to the tip of the 1993 common season? The loss was vital as a result of it knocked FSU out of the highest spot within the rankings and put Notre Dame No. 1.

However when Notre Dame misplaced on a last-second subject objective to a ranked Boston School crew the next week, your Seminoles jumped the Irish within the polls (regardless of shedding their head-to-head matchup the earlier week), and you’d go on to beat Nebraska within the national-title recreation.

Bobby, you may admit it now. You recognize that it was your affable, approachable, accessible manner of coping with the press that impacted voters and persuaded them to place FSU into the national-title recreation.

However now faculty soccer feels extra disconnected from the followers and media than ever earlier than. Sure, followers and boosters are nonetheless anticipated to jot down checks, pay exorbitant costs for season tickets, fork over their hard-earned money for inflated resort charges on gameday weekends, underwrite bloated teaching contracts that colleges can’t wait to purchase out … however they don’t get a lot in return. The connection between packages and their supporters has turned extra transactional than tribal.

The doorways are closed.

The fences are up.

The connection is nearly gone.

It’s a stark distinction out of your days, Bobby.

I nonetheless bear in mind on the day you coached your final recreation at FSU when former Orlando Sentinel FSU beat author Melissa Isaacson wrote a column about you for ESPN.com. She informed some nice tales about the way you not solely gave reporters your property telephone quantity, however how your quantity was listed within the Tallahassee telephone guide. She mentioned she was full of trepidation the primary time she ever referred to as you at house.

Wrote Isaacson:

I used to be nervous till he greeted me like a niece calling to want him a merry Christmas. … We’d communicate to him in his workplace, even earlier than video games, if one so desired, which one reporter did at size each single recreation for years with no objection from Bowden. And on the finish of your questions, it was at all times, “You bought sufficient?”

Did Bowden con all of us within the media into giving him the advantage of the doubt over time due to his unprecedented entry to him and his unfailing good nature? Possibly. However it’s onerous to not see a person’s sincerity when you’re given the chance to get to know him, to learn his loyalty to gamers as extra religion and forgiveness.

Years after protecting Bowden and Florida State, I had the event to go to him in his workplace, and it was nonetheless embellished in old-school coach, lined along with his trophies, pictures and books on World Struggle II, and tinged with that very same acquainted scent of Bengay and sweat that used to make my eyes water.

“You bought sufficient, gal?” he mentioned.

I’d give something for yet one more journey there.

I’d give something to have coaches nonetheless care when you acquired sufficient.

We miss you, Bobby.

We miss you now greater than ever.

If solely Mike Norvell and different coaches of as we speak would bear in mind how you probably did it.

If solely they might notice that the easiest way to construct a program isn’t by shutting folks out however by letting them in.

E mail me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (previously Twitter) @BianchiWrites and hearken to my Open Mike radio present each weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/pay attention

Initially Revealed: March 22, 2025 at 2:05 PM EDT