After six seasons as head football coach at West Virginia, Bobby Bowden leapt on a steppingstone in 1976.

"To be honest with you, when I came to Florida State, I could tell you exactly what I was thinking," he said. "I thought, let's have a couple of good years here in Tallahassee, remake this program and get back to the state of Alabama and coach at Auburn or Alabama.

"Well ..."

Well, sometimes the best laid plans are the ones that detour from the intended design.

Bowden, who turned 80 last month, never led the Crimson Tide out of the tunnel; he never got to coach at Auburn, either.

Instead, the charismatic yet deeply religious man from Birmingham stayed put and built Florida State from a program that had won four games over the previous three seasons before his arrival in Tallahassee to a squad that went 11-1 in 1979 and was within a game of the national championship. From there, he won national championships in 1993 and '99 and 12 Atlantic Coast Conference titles and 20 bowl games.

At 1 p.m. Friday, with a 388-129-4 career record -- 315 of those victories accumulated after he left Morgantown for that "steppingstone" job in Tallahassee 34 years ago -- Bowden will coach his final game.

Fittingly, that final game will be a Gator Bowl matchup between Florida State and West Virginia.

"I'd feel at home on either side," he said. "On one side is that garnet and gold and on that other side will be blue and gold. Really, I'd feel at home on either side."

When Bowden left Morgantown after accumulating a 42-26 record in six years, few would have imagined he would end up the second most winningest coach in Division I history, trailing only Penn State's Joe Paterno, who has 393 victories.

But Frank Cignetti, Sr., who was Bowden's offensive coordinator at West Virginia before succeeding him as head coach of the Mountaineers from 1976-79, quickly identified what he still perceives as Bowden's deepest strength: He let his coaches coach.

"Bobby is a delegator; he is now and he was back then," said Cignetti, who after leaving West Virginia went on to great success as head coach at IUP for 20 years. "When Bobby gave you a job to do, he trusted that you did it and never looked over your shoulder too much while you were doing it. He just trusted that you got it done."

West Virginia's current coach, Bill Stewart, played for Bowden for a year. In 1970, Stewart was a Mountaineers walk-on before leaving for Fairmont State. As Stewart has risen through the ranks to a Division I head coach, he has understood the importance of building a concrete staff around him -- and it is no coincidence he took that notion from his first college coach, who took it from a legend.

"Coach Bowden took a quote from coach Bear Bryant, that I've tried to emulate as well, 'I don't want to hire anyone that's not smarter than me,' " Stewart said. "Why would I want to hire anyone I have to micromanage? That being said, hire the best guy you can hire, and that's what Bobby Bowden has always done. And I know he got that from coach Bryant, because I know that quote."

Bowden admitted his longevity and success could largely be funneled into this virtue: You are only as good as the people around you.

"The truth is, now, the head coach don't hardly coach, you oversee things and you make sure it runs smoothly," Bowden said. "And in the '90s when we were winning championships? I probably didn't coach a lot more then than I do now, which isn't a whole lot.

"As a head coach you make sure you get good people around you, and I've been lucky to be able to do that."

One of those was Chuck Klausing, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame who was Bowden's defensive coordinator at West Virginia. Klausing, now 84, was head coach at IUP for six years before his stint under Bowden at West Virginia, head coach at Carnegie Mellon for 10 years after coaching in Morgantown and, at various times, has been a high school head coach and an assistant at Rutgers, Army and Pitt.

Obviously, Klausing has worked with an exorbitant number of coaches.

In Bowden, though, Klausing saw something different.

"He was the best coach I have ever observed of letting his staff coach, he was just marvelous," Klausing said. "He got the most out of his coaches, he was a great teacher of coaches and, I think what struck me most about Bobby is that when he hired you, he trusted you."

Monk Bonasorte is a proud Pittsburgher. "Bishop Boyle Class of 1975," he exclaimed before adding, "I'm just a kid from Hazelwood, you know, maybe the wrong side of town or whatever, who was playing sandlot football after high school, but who always worked as hard as I could. Then I came down here and this man just changed my life."

Down here is Tallahassee.

This man is Bobby Bowden.

Bonasorte, at the urging of former sandlot player and coach Rooster Fleming -- another Hazelwood tough guy -- made his way down to Tallahassee in the 1970s. At the time, Bowden's defensive coordinator at Florida State was Jack Stanton, a guy from Carnegie, who Fleming bothered and bothered -- and then bothered some more -- about giving Bonasorte a shot with the Seminoles.

Finally, Stanton relented.

"I was a kid who was just happy to get a chance. That's what it amounted to, Bobby Bowden gave me a chance because he trusted that Jack Stanton knew somebody up in Pittsburgh that could kind of vouch for me or whatever," Bonasorte said. "So I went down to Tallahassee without any promises, I paid my own way in the spring of 1977 and eventually earned a scholarship, all because Bobby Bowden gave me a chance."

All Bonasorte did was rise from a fifth-string walk-on to a four-year letterwinner, a member of Florida State's All-Time Team, ranking second in school history with 15 interceptions. His eight interceptions in 1979 rank as the second-highest single-season total in school history.

Bonasorte was inducted into the Florida State athletic hall of fame in 1995 and, now, is a senior associate athletic director at the university.

On Tuesday morning, Bonasorte made a point to leave his office and walk out to practice -- it was important for him to be there.

The practice was to be Bowden's final on-campus workout. The team was readying to break for Christmas, then move its operation to Jacksonville for a week to get ready for the Gator Bowl.

"Sometimes, Bobby Bowden gets criticized for taking some of the kids that he takes. I have heard that through the years, that he takes these at-risk kids," Bonasorte said. "I will tell you this, Bobby Bowden has made more immature boys into mature men than anyone I know; he has changed more lives than anyone I know. You hear these stories and, sure, maybe he brought some kids here who might not have worked out, but the vast majority of the kids he gave an opportunity to, he changed their life for the better, he gave them a better life and gave them opportunity.

"Just look at what the man did for me."

Bowden is concerned about what will transpire Friday.

Lost in all the pomp, buried in all the circumstance, he thinks everyone could be forgetting something.

"The only thing I am really concerned about is that it doesn't take away from the players," Bowden said of the Gator Bowl, which likely will turn into a celebration of his career. "I just hope that all of this doesn't distract from the players and I hope they don't make too big a deal out about it.

"But I know, when I walk out on the field, there will be 44 years worth of memories, a lot of memories with a lot of great people, and a lot of them are gone, a lot of them aren't living anymore, so it might be tough."

Bowden doesn't know exactly how he will tackle everything that comes with the Gator Bowl. He also doesn't know, precisely, what he'll do when coaching is behind him.

"I don't want to get sentimental about it, it is just my last ballgame," Bowden said. "I tell people all the time that I ain't ever had a job. Maybe, after the game is over, I'll go back to Tallahassee and find me a job."

Sounds about right -- after all, Florida State was just supposed to be a steppingstone.

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