Dan Wolken

USA TODAY Sports

During his 34 years at Florida State, most of which were spent in the national spotlight in one way or another, it was never difficult to get hold of Bobby Bowden. When reporters would call his office, it wasn’t unusual for him to answer the phone himself. And, at times, fans would find the courage to call him at home because, well, his number was listed in the phone book.

The Bowden reign, beginning in 1976 at a program with very little history and ending 2009 after a pair of national titles, represented an era in college football that would be impossible to duplicate today from its longevity to its mixture of folksiness and showmanship.

“I told a lot of writers when they’d come down to see me, if I had their job and I had to write a story every day, I couldn’t do it,” Bowden told USA TODAY Sports in a phone interview this week. “So I felt like I owed them a story.”

In many ways, he still does.

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The story of Bowden’s life and coaching career has been repackaged in a documentary titled The Bowden Dynasty: A story of Faith, Family and Football, debuting Sunday in St. Petersburg, Fla., and in select U.S. cinemas nationwide. It focuses on how Bowden brought a relatively unknown school to a level of prominence where it competed for national titles annually for nearly two decades.

Between 1987 and 2001, Florida State went 152-19-1 with a record 14 consecutive finishes in the top five, a run not unlike what Alabama is putting together currently under Nick Saban.

“When we went through the dynasty, I never knew it,” Bowden said. “I didn’t even think about it. I never thought about it until it was over, and then it seemed like every year it grew stronger. That’s what time does, I guess. But while it was happening, I didn’t know it was happening. All I knew is we were winning dadgum games.”

Bowden’s deep religious faith, and how it manifested itself in his family life and career, is intertwined throughout the film. It is also the basis for one of the more controversial aspects of Bowden’s tenure in his willingness to give second chances to players who ran afoul of the law.

College football coaches are still grappling with those issues amidst a media environment where there’s more attention than ever on off-field behavior.

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“Back in those days, when a boy gets into too much trouble it starts as a felony. If a boy has a felony, he can’t play, nothing I can do,” Bowden said. “So you try to get it reduced down to a misdemeanor, and unless it’s a terrible thing you usually can. I think (the movie) shows how I’d give them second chances if I can. Some boys would get in trouble so bad I couldn’t do nothing. I’d lose ‘em. But the worst thing is I didn’t want to kick them back out on the street. They don’t need to be out on the street. I’d try to save ‘em.”

Perhaps the most notable example in Bowden’s career was star receiver Peter Warrick, who was arrested along with Laveraneus Coles in October 1999 for stealing clothes from a department store. Coles was dismissed from the team because of previous misconduct, but Warrick was suspended just two games, bringing scrutiny to Florida State after a string of high-profile players had brushes law enforcement.

But Bowden was resolute that he did the right thing by his players in giving them second chances and said to this day there were more success stories than failures.

“I could probably name a whole lot of players who turned out real good, you know it?” he said. “There’s always the exceptions but gosh, I don’t know many of them that came through our program. I did have some players where you can’t save ‘em. You have to let ‘em go. People wonder, why do coaches defend their boys? Well, you know, Ann and I had six children and if they got in trouble I’d sure want somebody to give them a second chance.”

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