And, yet, at his public funeral service over the weekend, there was barely any mention of football itself. More than 300 of Bowden’s former players along with dozens of former assistant coaches showed up and paid tribute to Bowden at the “Celebration of Life” memorial service in Tallahassee — and, remarkably, they talked not of all the championships he won, but of all the lives he touched.
To me, that is the miracle of Robert Cleckler “Bobby” Bowden. He is the second-winningest coach in major college history, yet we mostly remember him not for how he coached football but for how he treated people.