Bucs coach reminisces.

Unless you just woke up from an all-time Saturday night bender, you know Florida State coaching legend Bobby Bowden passed away Sunday morning. He was 91 and lost a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Bowden coached Florida State for 33 years. He ended his career with a 377–129–4 record.

Bowden had several connections to the Bucs.

Current radio play-by-play man Gene Deckerhoff often credits Bowden with Deckerhoff taking the Bucs’ radio gig. Deckerhoff, also the radio voice of the Seminoles, taped his weekly TV “Bobby Bowden Show” on Sundays after Florida State games but had to change the schedule to Saturday nights in order to be able to broadcast Bucs games the next day.

Had Bowden not agreed to do that, Deckerhoff would not have been able to call Bucs games.

Former Bucs coach Father Dungy wrote a foreword to one of Bowden’s books.

And of course, Derrick Brooks played for Bowden. There may not be a football coach who Brooks was closer to.

Even current Bucs Super Bowl-winning coach Bucco Bruce Arians was connected to Bowden. When Arians played for and later was an assistant coach at Virginia Tech, the Hokies often played West Virginia when Bowden coached there.

(Later, Arians and Bowden squared off once as college head coaches in 1984, when Arians coached Temple. FSU won 44-27.)

Arians doesn’t have too many fond memories of playing West Virginia but sure has fond memories of Bowden.

Asked today in his post-practice presser if he knew Bowden, Arians opened up.

“Really, really well,” Arians said. “I knew him all the way back at West Virginia, and Coach Bowden is, gosh, [a] great man.

“Obviously, the legacy and the program that he left at FSU – he was loved everywhere he ever was. Great family. Yeah, we lost a great one in our sport.”

The bad memories? Well, they weren’t with Bowden. Instead, Arians had issues with the notoriously rowdy, moonshine-sippin’ West Virginia fans.

“They used to hand out tobacco and spit on us when we came out of the tunnel,” Arians said. “We had some good battles with West Virginia. They were kind of our rivals back then.”

Bowden had a personal motto that Arians said every football coach, including young football coaches, should take to heart.

“‘Family, faith and football’ – everything he lived by and preached. You’ve got to have all three.”