Terry Bowden made a successful return to college football coaching in 2009, taking Division II North Alabama to the playoffs before losing in the quarterfinals. I had a chance to catch up with him this past weekend as he talked to a group of UNA alumni at ChampionsGate.
A few quick hitters:
His brother, Jeff, is now officially on staff as receivers coach after working as a volunteer in 2009. “Jeff did a great job for me at North Alabama,” Terry said. “We lost some coaches and he was the first guy I put on my staff when we had a position open. He’ll do the exact same thing he did last year but now get paid from us.”
Terry Bowden was reluctant to talk too much about his father, Bobby. Perhaps the family is waiting until Bobby Bowden’s new book comes out in August. “Called to Coach” will describe Bobby Bowden’s spiritual journey through coaching, and FSU will be mentioned prominently. Will he unload his true feelings on how his departure went down? Stay tuned.
Now on to the full Q&A:
Q: What is it like being back in coaching and what do you take away from your first year at North Alabama?
A: Being back in coaching it’s everything I hoped it would be. Just the excitement and the enjoyment at my age in life, I turned 54 two days ago after a 10 year sabbatical. I feel like I’m 30 years old again. Although you have to really qualify the success level at UNA — we went 11-2 ended up in the final 8, 6th in the nation but that’s about par, that’s not exceptional, that’s not poor. I think it’s nice we came in, having lost 21 seniors from the year before, having brought a lot of transfers in to see if we could keep from stumbling, we were 10-0 and No. 1 in the country at one point but we really peaked at that time and could not sustain our quality of play. That’s one of the things we take from that season. We learned what it’s going to take now. Our goal is now to finish. Let’s learn how to play 15 games. The great luxury at UNA is that the national championship has been played there for 30 years or so. So I got to watch the 2 national championship teams and one of the teams, Northwest Missouri State that won the championship has been there the last 5 straight years. You got a chance to get to the final 8 and then watch the 2 championship teams, and so you see what we’ve got to do to finish. I’m excited about this year and the prospects of going out there and trying to have a better season.
Q: So what does it take to finish?
A: To finish, that’s almost a strategic analytic question because I think it has something to do with how we practice, how we prepare. We had a lot of transfers last year. They said hey coach you told me I had to play with you 12 games, that’s it — 14 I don’t know about 14 and 15. I think we have to learn as a staff, especially me being in Division I most of my time, is that we’ve got to pace ourselves just like the NFL. The object is to get there healthy and get there primed and sometimes you lose a game in the season resting guys up, so I think all those things are important. Now on a fundamental basis, finish every drill, finish every play finish every power lift, finish everything we do so those little things can lead to us finishing a little higher.
Q: How do you feel about playoffs?
A: I really do love it. I cannot think of any reasonable expectations why we would not play a playoff at the Bowl Championship Series level as well. I do believe we should use the bowl sites, but I do not think there’s any justification for us not playing a playoff at every level of football. It’s a lot of fun, it’s just a lot of excitement, it builds the pressure, but I think it’s how the game was supposed to be played. It’s supposed to be won on the field. Mythical national championships are fun to write about, but they’re not much fun to earn.
Q: What did you enjoy most about being back?
A: Just being around the guys, being around young guys, being around an office full of grown-up men that talk football all day and being around a college campus and being around guys and working with them, that’s the energy that I missed and that’s the energy that coaching or working with young people gives you and I think that’s what I was longing for and that’s the most important thing. Sometimes you change your goals in life. Monetarily, I may have been doing a lot better 2 years ago in broadcasting but from a satisfaction and life enjoyment, doing what I want to do, this has been a great year.
Q: What has changed the most since you’ve been away?
A: My dad usually gets these questions after 7 decades and he says nothing and I’m thinking after 10 years I’m not sure anything has changed, either. We keep saying boy the salaries they pay now –there’s pressure. They used to pay you 1/10th as much and fire you just as quickly 20 years ago. So I don’t know that a lot has changed. I do believe that because of the change in the way that football and sports is covered, not just print media but now with talk radio and Internet media, which I had been a part of for 10 years, the scrutiny the amount of interest, the amount of pressure on young freshmen on recruiting on coaches on everyday life, it really pushes up the stakes. It pushes up the pressure of the business so I think it’s the way in which we instantly cover everything through the Internet and through sport talk radio that kind of has really changed a lot of the feel good part of it too.
Q: Your name was linked to job openings last year. Did you interview anywhere else?
A: Again, I don’t like my name talked about for all those jobs. I don’t talk about leaving. I just spent my time coaching, but I guess all coaches that do well enough get their names linked. If you don’t do well your name doesn’t get linked. That’s the main thing there. That’s the one point I do want to get across, I didn’t apply for 50 different jobs. I think all coaches that have success are fortunate enough to have their names mentioned but after a while we get tired of it because we’re not really out there talking to those people.
Q: Will it be strange to open next season without your dad on the sideline?
A: Well I’m so busy coaching, I don’t know, who knows he might be on my sideline we don’t know.
Q: How have you raised the profile for North Alabama?
A: Quite naturally, the Bowden name is associated with college football. With the years that my dad and my brothers and I have put into the business, there’s a lot of interest just in seeing how we’re going to do good or bad. That’s from a national standpoint. We had articles in the New York Times and every other paper in the country talking about North Alabama. North Alabama had its highest enrollment in history this past January and we think there’s a connection to that, but I think because I was a head coach in the SEC, especially Auburn, and to come back in that state, that changes things for North Alabama. That puts them in a different light. That makes an impact on the fans in that state immensely. Whether I’m worth it or not, that’s the nature of the business. The SEC is to the people in the state of Alabama, it’s a badge of honor that you wear.
Q: How has that helped in recruiting?
A: I think not just the SEC, but when you go out and recruit guys to the Division II level, and they instantly know your name when they’ve never been recruited by Division II or I-A, it gets you in the door but also Division II football is a level of play that we have instant transferability. You can transfer from I-A, I-AA Division II and play immediately. With the number of coaches in the business who have worked for myself, my father, my brother who are head coaches, assistant coaches, every time there’s a player looking for a place to play that they feel is a special kind, we get a phone call pretty quick. The relationships we have with our friends in the business have been one of the biggest pluses at UNA.
Q: You took a lot of players from FSU, including Preston Parker, who was kicked off the team after several scrapes with the law. Why do you give second chances?
A: I would want somebody to give my child, I have 6 children, I’m going to give them a second chance. I’ll probably give them a third, a fourth and a fifth. Sometimes we don’t want for other people’s children the same thing we want for our own children. I never try to recruit and bring in a player that I think is going to be harmful to our players off the field, on the field. If I don’t have a good relationship with the people who coached Preston Parker and others, my brother Jeff was the offensive coordinator, my dad was the head coach. They know what he’s like on a real basis so I would say most everybody that we brought in that needed a second chance, I think there were coaches that vouched for the fact that they did deserve a second chance. Everybody in life deserves a second chance. To say why not just education not football, that’s a career possibility for those guys too. To suggest those guys don’t have a second chance to full fill some of their dreams and ambitions, I don’t think it’s fair to them. We’re going to try to give a second chance if we can. I think we can make a difference in these players’ lives.
