One thought came quickly to mind yesterday after seeing Bobby Bowden get pushed out the door after a legendary coaching career in which he made Florida State a national player in college football and brought millions of dollars and inestimable glory to the university:

How easily that fate could have befallen Joe Paterno.

It's no fun seeing it happen to Bowden -- even if there long has been speculation that he didn't always run the cleanest of programs. It would have been horrible to see it happen to Paterno, the finest coach the college game has known and a man who, almost always, has represented the best of college football.

Bowden's retirement is hardly surprising even though he clearly wanted to coach one more season. The Florida State program that he built from nothing into a two-time national champion has hit hard times. The Seminoles were crushed by rival Florida, 37-10, Saturday to finish the regular season with a 6-6 record, their third season in the past four with six losses. Not even the great Bowden, 80, could survive that tumble.

The beginning of the end for Bowden came in October when Jim Smith, the head of the university's trustees, publicly called for his retirement. Bowden met Monday and yesterday with school president T.K. Wetherell and athletic director Randy Spetman before announcing his retirement only two days after saying he wanted to come back next season. Bowden will coach in the Seminoles' bowl game -- their 28th in a row and 31st overall under him -- before turning the program over to offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher. Reports out of Tallahassee say Bowden would love his final game to be against West Virginia, where he was head coach from 1970-75, in the Gator Bowl.

It's hard to say Wetherell and Spetman were wrong to force Bowden's retirement. His record indicates he has stayed on too long. I admire their strength in making what surely isn't a popular decision among many Seminoles fans, who will argue that Bowden, after 34 seasons at Florida State, earned the right to go out on his terms.

Certainly, Wetherell and Spetman are stronger than Penn State president Graham Spanier and athletic director Tim Curley were after the 2004 season. The Nittany Lions had just finished 4-7 -- their fourth losing season in five years -- when Spanier and Curley went to Paterno's house to ask him to retire. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. The record certainly seemed to prove that Paterno, who was approaching his 78th birthday, had stayed on too long. But he wouldn't hear of retiring. He shooed Spanier and Curley away, making them look small and weak.

The next season, Penn State went 11-1, shared the Big Ten Conference co-championship and beat Bowden's Florida State team in the Orange Bowl. It followed up that magical season by going 9-4, 9-4 and 11-2 last season when it again won a share of the Big Ten title and played in the Rose Bowl. This season, the Nittany Lions are 10-2 and could be headed to a BCS game. They don't deserve to play in a big bowl after losing badly at home to Iowa and Ohio State, but bowl matchups aren't about fairness. They're about which teams can put the most fannies in a stadium and eyeballs on a television set. Paterno and Penn State do that as well as any coach and any program.

The remarkable five-year run that Penn State has made since the call for Paterno's retirement enabled him to catch and pass Bowden as history's winningest major-college coach. Paterno has 393 wins to Bowden's 388. Now that Paterno is the last man standing, it's reasonable to think his record might last forever. That seems only right.

Bowden's retirement brings one other unavoidable thought: Paterno can't be too far behind.

He will turn 83 Dec. 21. It's clear now that Spanier and Curley will let Paterno make his retirement decision. He has shown no indication that he's considering it and he should have a strong team again next season after another terrific recruiting class. But, really, how much longer can he go?

For a long time, I've being struggling with thoughts about what Paterno's chief legacy will be at Penn State. Is it those 393 wins? The countless millions he has raised for the university? The fact his teams routinely attract game-day crowds of 105,000 or more to Beaver Stadium? I guess it has to be the wins because the successful fundraising efforts and the big crowds wouldn't have happened without them.

But I'm starting to think Paterno's unfathomable longevity is his greatest achievement. Not just his longevity, but his strength and conviction to move ahead successfully when so many around him have doubted him and wanted him to retire.

How envious Bowden must be.

Not of Paterno's wins record.

Of his strength.