I got to see Bobby Bowden coach. 

Sort of.

Three weeks ago Florida State came to town and beat whatever pretensions the Deacons had left out of them.  41-28.

And Bobby Bowden was there.

I can only hope if I'm around at 80 I look as well or move around as easily.  There's a book worth writing on aging gracefully and laughing your way through life and the FSU coach could write it.  In fact, I hope he considers writing about his life in college football because if anyone has seen and done it all it's Robert Bowden.

But when I heard the Seminoles were forcing him into retirement.  Well, not THE Seminoles (that would be an interesting story) but the FSU Athletic Department powers that be (let's be honest, not even them, the guys who write the big checks) had forced Bowden into retirement my first thought was simple.

Hadn't he already retired?

Watching the FSU-Wake Forest game it was pretty obvious this was not a hands on coach.  Bowden didn't have a headset, just a young assistant walking behind him with a headset.  And the coach wasn't saying much to him and vice versa.

Florida State's coach mainly stayed out of the way, about 30 yards from the line of scrimmage.  He talked to a highway patrolman, but I don't recall seeing him talking to any players. 

I will say this.  Just before halftime Florida State's quarterback threw an interception and the Wake player who caught the ball was hit hard, very hard, on the return.  When the benches emptied Bowden went to the field and helped break things up.  And he did talk to the refs on his way off the field.

But coaching?  It's hard to judge from a distance and I don't want to be unfair about it.  But at 80 who would fault Bowden from stepping back and letting his assistants take the lead.  If he was involved in the game on the field it was in the manner of those fellows in the movie "Men Who Stare At Goats".

Apparently some FSU supporters who were displeased enough with the team's 6-6 record to force Bowden into retirement a season sooner than he planned.  Having said what I have about Bowden's lack of involvement, it may surprise you to know I think his forced resignation was unnecessary at best and bad form at worst.

If you go back through Florida State's record this year you can easily construct scenarios where, with a break here and there, they could be 9-3.  In which case the same people howling for Bowden's resignation would be saying how great it is the wise old man was going into his last season next year on a high note.

Would Bowden have made the team any worse by coming back one more season?  Did having a head coach more in the designation than in reality hurt that much this year?  And what will Florida State have next year they don't have now?

Not much will change for Bowden being gone.  Jimbo Fisher will be head coach, and truth be told probably often was this year.  The recruits who were going to come will come and the ones who didn't won't.  And Florida State will turn some of those "almost wins" into actual ones and likely go 10-3 in 2010.

None of which will resonate any more in memory than an a smiling old man in a straw hat wondering the sidelines as he prepares to move into the history books.  A man who gave everything he had to Florida State and, in return, was given a graceless push off the sidelines.

Bowden, even the Bowden of 2009, deserved better.

Thank you for your recent attempt to get a post about yourself on this blog by driving into a fire hydrant and tree.  However, this is our busy season with multiple sports (college and pro) underway.  We are unable to find an angle regarding your story which would warrant inclusion here. 

Please do not let this discourage you from future acts which might gain our attention.   As a rule we normally do not blog about golfers, but we would be willing to take a second look at your submission if it had artistic merit.

Artistic merit, for purposes of the Dudski blog, includes:

Being cursed at, and/or threatened with violent physical harm, by Tony Stewart. 

Providing steroids to Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriquez, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemmens, or Buddy Biancalana.

Romantic involvement with any of the following: Erin Andrews, Danica Patrick, any Sports Illustrated cover model on or after the year 2003, or Tanya Harding.

Covering your body with tattoos over a minimum of 47% of your body.  Covering 75% or more (also known as "The Full Iverson") will result in ten points being added to your blogability score.

Signing a free agent contract with the New York Yankees, also known as "The Gotham Evil".

Confessions of having gambled on baseball with Pete Rose or NHL games with Wayne Gretzky's wife.

Possession of documents which conclusively establish paternity by Dean Smith of the travelling Gnome on those TV commercials.

A recording of yourself and John Daly signing "Love The One You're With" in a kariokee bar.

Inside information on whether Brett Favre will return to the Vikings in 2010.

A photo of you pulling a visibly shaken Charlie Weis out of the flaming wreckage of his coaching career.

Good luck in your future endeavors.  You might also wish to submit a brief video tape of yourself and wife/significant other for consideration by the reality TV division of Dudski enterprises. 

We are always on the lookout for dramatic real life stories.  For example, if you would be willing to appear on camera discribing a violent attack by your wife after she has discovered your infidelity resulting in injury to yourself, and/or property damage we could get something going with your agent.

Have your people talk to my people.

Dudski

The wheels of justice do grind slowly.

But they grind.

Stephen Jackson has just been sentenced to three years with the Charlotte Bobcats.  All those who thought he got off easy for going into the stands in Indiana can rest easy.  It is the day of retribution.

Of course, Jackson said all the right things.  Just happy to be here.

In Charlotte, where he'll once again have to go up into the stands.  In search of fans not disguised as empty seats.

On the other hand he will be playing for Larry Brown.

On the other hand he will be playing for Larry Brown.

Maybe he'll even get to meet Michael Jordan, the Bobcats GM.  Or the late Howard Hughes.  Both are very mysterious.  Neither attends any of the Bobcats games.

Jackson also won't run into Don Nelson in Charlotte.  He's probably happy to be away from an ego driven coach on a team going nowhere.

Oh, wait.

Maybe the trade will work out.  Jackson is a scorer.  The Bobcats need a scorer.  And if you're going to be doing time on a losing team, you at least want it to be somewhere you'll get the ball.

Charlotte's not a bad place to live.  You can get just about anywhere in forty-five minutes.  As long as you're headed out of town. Coming into town from the burbs by car?  Pack a lunch.

Speaking of headed out of town...

Jackson's contract is for three years.  Will the Bobcats still be in Charlotte three years from now?

Not at 14,600 fans a night.  Then again, where would the team go?  The league won't let them go under, if for no other reason than Sacremento, Memphis, and Indiana are in front of the Cats' in line.

So this is your life Stephen Jackson.

Fire up a jumper.  Or two.  Or seven.

Anything to pass the time.

Roy Williams is fifty-nine years old.

When you reach that point in life you shouldn't be embarrasing yourself for a relationship.  Some guys that age do it with younger women.  Roy Williams, head basketball coach at the University of North Carolina, did it for a relationship with a seventeen year old basketball player.

Granted, Harrison Barnes, has the potential to be a great player.  Like many marquee recruits, he also has the potential to be a disappointment.  And, most likely, he will be a NBA bound college dropout within two years.

Barnes is very articulate for a seventeen year old.  But, like most seventeen year olds, he has nothing meaningful to say.  But he does love to talk.

"We developed a lot of trust in our relationship.  It was great to see how, even though we developed that relationship, he didn't get comfortable with that.  he still kept coming to see me.  He still kept calling me.  He really put in the time and effort."

Translation-Roy Williams didn't let the fact he's the coach of the NCAA national champions interfere with him prostrating himself before a seventeen year old, six foot seven, blue chip basketball recruit.

After all, nobody likes an uppity coach who has the idea that you earn your place in basketball as part of a team.  What you want is a coach who plays along with a ego driven press conference and pretends there was some suspense over where Barnes was going.

Like Roy Williams.

When Williams went along with the charade and said "Well, alright!" and brought his team out of practice to crowd around the video camera at Friday's signing video conference he sent a message.  His dignity as an adult has a price (about $1.8 million annually).

The morning after the Barnes signing was treated in the North Carolina media the way the launch of Sputnik by the Russians was covered way back when.  An escalation of the arms race, a loss of face.  The face, in this case, belonging to Duke and it's coach Mike Kryzyzewski, the runners up in the courtship of Harrison Barnes.

Down here in North Carolina we have an expression.  "I don't have a dog in that hunt".  I'm not a fan of UNC or Duke.  I respect their coaches, enjoy their rivalry, but don't live and die based on what goes down at the Dean Dome or Cameron indoor.

But as an outside observer, I'll offer this heretical opinion.  The real winner in the Harrison Barnes signing was Duke, and more specifically Coach K.

You suspect somewhere in Barnes comments was a message that Duke, widely reported to be his first choice, didn't kneel down in front of him and kiss the ring.  That Coach K didn't "put in the time". 

If that's the case, good for Coach K and good for Duke.  Because once you make blue chip players bigger than the program, once you start flying across the country to prove how important they are, and once you start huddling in front of video cameras with your team for a seventeen year old who hasn't ever played for your team you've got trouble on the way.

You've sent a message to Harrison Barnes, who apparently isn't lacking in the ego department to begin with, that the world turns around him.  You've told the rest of the team basically that.  And, for what it's worth, you've made yourself look like a teenage boy with a crush on the prettiest girl at your school.

$1.8 million a year?  That would be a nice pay day.  Selling your dignity when you're at the top of your profession and don't have to?

There's not enough money in the world.

It just isn't done.

There are things you just can't tolerate.  The country next to you getting nuclear weapons before you do.  Your daughter marrying someone who is known by a single name (except to the authorities in Georgia who have accumulated much more detailed biographical information).  Rain the day after you mowed the lawn.

And, apparently, losing to the United States Naval Academy football team.

Notre Dame lost to Navy 23-21 the other day.  In South Bend.  As the Shakespearian crowd says, "treble woe".

As they say among the Irish faithful, "Fire Charlie Weis".

Then again, they say that alot anyway.

As a Navy fan since the days of Roger Staubach (I think I watched the Cotton Bowl from inside my crib, but I do remember it), it's a bit annoying.

Why are fans so shocked when Navy wins?  And why do they treat it as some sort of indication the world has been turned upside down?

A few weeks back it was Wake Forest.  In a driving rain storm in Annapolis the Midshipmen won a tight game against an ACC team which hardly the 1985 Chicago Bears.  For that matter, Wake this season wouldn't match up well against the Yogi Bears. 

There was the predictable outrage on the internet.

"How can we lose to a team running a gimmick offense?"  "How could we lose to Navy?" 

Actually it's quite easy.  You simply fail to stop the fullback, give up the occasional "Oh, no, they're actually throwing deep" deep pass, and get outhustled by a highly disciplined group of over achievers who don't know they are supposed to lose.

As for the triple option, if it were such an unfair advantage why doesn't everyone run it?  Probably because it requires split second timing, complete avoidance of penalties, and sublimation of egoes.  Not to mention that if you get behind more than a touchdown and you are sunk.

Still, Navy has accumulated 7 wins against three losses running the triple.  Paul Johnson, the former Navy coach, took Georgia Tech to 9-1 running it with a win against Wake Forest (how well that must sit with Deacon fans). 

The world hums along.  Navy will close with Delaware, Hawaii, and Army and go to a second tier bowl.  The Army game carries the potential for a dog fight.  Despite a 3-6 record, Army is much improved and anything can happen in an Army-Navy game.

Charlie Weis?  He'll get to stay unless the wheels fall off.  What the administration at Notre Dame understands, but their fans don't, is that BCS bowl teams are built in Florida, Texas, and California and those players aren't rushing to middle America to play football. 

Weis will develop, and Notre Dame will again develop, into a good coach and team combination.  But not one which annually competes for the national championship.

Or automatically beats Navy.