I’m totally going to embrace my inner sports fan, here, so if you have no interest in reading some personal thoughts/feelings from a diehard sports fan about his favorite team, then just completely ignore this post

I’m a horror fan. And I’m a sports fan. For some reason, a lot of people seem to think you can’t be both. A film geek who likes sports? Yep, that’s me. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m not a big professional sports fan. When it comes to pro teams, I’m the sort of person who follows certain players rather than following any blind allegiance to a pro team. My favorite sport is, without question, basketball. I just love the game. Dwayne Wade happens to be my favorite player and he just so happens to play for the Heat. But I have no loyalty to the Heat franchise. If D-Wade leaves as a free agent next summer, I’ll just be inclined to root for whatever team he is on by default. Professional sports just don’t interest and/or grab me the way college sports do. In college, it’s all about the team. Through thick and thin: you stick with team over the individual. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that you know, for the most part, college players aren’t going to jump from team to team and there is always such a revolving door of new and exiting players. The team just becomes the focus. College athletics are about tradition and every college fan wraps themselves up in that tradition and wants to participate in it in some way.

I remember when I became a fan of the Florida State Seminoles, much to the chagrin of my Nebraska counterparts. It was actually when I was living in California and it began innocently enough. I was about seven or eight and saw one of their games on television. I remember thinking the uniforms were cool. And when you’re a kid, that’s sort of what you notice when you don’t understand anything about the game itself. My entire family is from Nebraska, so they were always Cornhusker fans (another team with a great tradition). For whatever reason, I just couldn’t stand that team. I didn’t like how they played, I thought they were boring to watch, and of course, those uniforms were ugly. What attracted me to the Seminoles as a kid was the coolness of it all. These guys had that famous warchant and tomahawk chop. They passed the ball all over the field. Their players were fast as hell and had a cocky swagger to them that drove people in Nebraska nuts (which just made them seem even cooler). Seeing Chief Osceola ride Renegade to the center of the field and throw a flaming spear into the 50 yard line…who doesn’t think that is rad? I mean, they even have a sod cemetary,  where they would take a piece of the opposing teams field and bury it, complete with a tombstone. They even had great villains. The Miami Hurricanes. Just as good, cocky, and fun to watch, but the identified mortal enemy. It was just great drama and pageantry, all around. As a kid, FSU was just way more appealing than Nebraska and it was a way for me to sort of find my own niche and not just like a team because I was supposed to like them because I happened to be from that state. It also helped that they won. All the time. So not only were they cool as hell, but they were always on Nebraska’s level of success which always allowed for lively debates at family gatherings. As my mom always likes to point out, I was a cocky California kid whose mouth got him into trouble quite a bit: FSU was the team for me. Always has been, always will.

As I grew older and became more of a fan, and began to understand the nuance of the rivalries, the matchups, the individual players, I became totally, an FSU fanatic. I would watch every game I could. I watched Wide Right I and Wide Right II and still remember the sting and hurt from seeing “my team” lose such heartbreaking games (to The Enemy, no less), and thus, National Championships. I remember the craziness of 1993, when Florida State played Nebraska for the title (watch and weep, Cornsuckers!). I actually had to go into the bathroom and shut the door because I was afraid to watch that final Nebraska field goal attempt. In other words, being a fan of Florida State was a big part of my childhood. It was more than just rooting for a team, it was a way for me to have something of my own, in a way. My “fanatic” years peaked around the age of 18 or 19. From that point on, I started doing other things that just took my attention away from sports. By the time high school ended, I no longer felt the need to watch every game. I no longer got bothered over losses. I was more preoccupied with girls, music, and movies.  But I’ve always remained a fan. I follow the team every year, no longer with the insane passion I once did, but I can never truly get away from the fact that FSU feels personal to me. I think that is the mark of a true fan. When even if you don’t follow the day to day news anymore, you still feel like you are part of that “tradition” and I certainly want to see it prosper again.

Which brings me to Bobby Bowden. Coach Bowden was always the constant with FSU football. Players come and go, but the one thing you could always count on was seeing this jolly dude saying “Dadgumit!”. Bobby Bowden is Florida State football.  Unlike Nebraska, which had Bob Devaney before Tom Osborne (by the way, we beat T.O. in all the bowl games) Florida State was nothing before Bobby Bowden. The entire history of Florida State football was written and created by Bobby Bowden which makes his forced resignation (and let’s not beat around the bush, that’s what it was) all the more sad. It is no secret that FSU hasn’t been a factor in the championship discussion for some time and in this day and age, everything is  “what have you done for me lately?”. Bowden certainly has made his share of mistakes (most glaringly, hiring his son as offensive coordinator and then refusing to fire him even though it was clear that it needed to be done), but to kick this guy to the curb when he is obviously not ready to go is really unfair, in my opinion. Admittedly, I have a pro-Bowden bias, but it just seems like this was handled all wrong. Four of FSU’s six losses this year have been by 10 points or less and they were in every game to the very end. I have a strong suspicion that if the team was 10-2 right now instead of 6-6, Bowden would have been given his final year with a senior laden offense and one last run at a BCS bowl. It was only a few years ago that people in Penn State were calling for the head of Joe Paterno after multiple losing seasons, only for JoePa to turn the program back into a power.

But that’s what Bobby Bowden’s career has always seemed to be: near misses. Florida State was the winningest program in the 90′s and Bowden scored two National Championships in 93 and 99. But most college football observers note that, if not for a million missed field goal attempts, he would probably have another 2 titles, at the very least. The past decade has been filled with near misses. Can’t miss QB and RB recruits that turned out to be total busts. Close losses that seemed to pile up instead of being the rare heartbreakers of decades past. It just all seemed to coalesce into a perfect storm, and now FSU thinks Jimbo Fisher is the answer, and it’s time to push the man who made the institution out of the way.

I don’t blame Bowden for many of the lapses of the past few years. Sure, he deserves some of the blame for stubbornly sticking to nepotism when it clearly was hurting his program. He should have been more vigilant on the recruiting trail. But to his credit, he did overhaul the entire system, bringing in highly praised and “qualified” assistant coaches. He did what the rabid boosters and fans wanted. But somehow, Jimbo Fisher and the rest aren’t getting the blame for being the ones calling the plays the past few years. All the rage is being directed on an 80 year old guy who loves his school and program to death and probably feels disgusted that a bunch of dickheads are forcing him to leave the thing he built. 34 years. And they couldn’t give him his final year?

I grew up with Bobby Bowden. I guess I can sort of feel the way Nebraska fans did when Tom Osborne left, only instead of getting to go out on his own terms, Bowden’s forced departure just feels like a betrayal. As a fan, I feel like the team is letting me down. Bowden doesn’t deserve to go out like this, but for all FSU fans who grew up with this dadgum coach, I think I can say “You’ll always be FSU’s coach and you’ll be missed”.

Filed under: MaT's Stuff