Mike Bianchi: With FSU’s Mike Norvell shutting out the media, we miss Bobby Bowden more than ever

ORLANDO, Fla. — We miss you, Bobby.

We miss you, Bobby Bowden.

We miss you now more than ever.

We miss you not just for all the victories, the national championships or the larger-than-life aura you brought to the sidelines, but for the way you made college football feel like it was Thanksgiving dinner at grandma’s house.

You made us feel like we belonged, like Florida State football was just one big, happy family where everybody — fans, reporters, even rival coaches — had a place at your bountiful table of kindness. You didn’t just coach a football team; you cultivated a culture of openness, warmth and connection. You weren’t just one of the greatest college football coaches who ever lived; you were the greatest college football ambassador who ever lived.

And now it feels like the last remaining vestige of your spirit is gone.

Bobby, we found out just a few days ago that current FSU coach Mike Norvell has closed practice to the media for the first time. It’s probably not a big deal to fans, but it should be. You see, it’s a sad day because it once seemed like Norvell was walking in your footsteps.

Norvell was one of the few left who kept his practices open, but now he is becoming just like the rest of the long list of secretive, paranoid college football coaches who treat reporters like spies and treat fans and boosters like ATM machines. We thought Norvell was on his way to being the next Bobby Bowden, but now he’s becoming the next Jimbo Fisher.

Bobby, if you were still here, maybe you’d sit down with coach Norvell and tell him some stories. You were always good at that, spinning yarns that somehow, by the end, made everybody feel good. Maybe you’d advise him that just because he finished with a historically bad 2-10 record doesn’t mean he needs to change who he is at his core. Maybe you could tell him what you used to say when you were asked why you opened up your program to the media.

Remember what you said, Bobby?

You said something to the effect of, “Ain’t nobody ever proved to me that opening up our practices and locker room to the media ever cost us one victory.”

Maybe, too, you could remind coach Norvell of a time when hometown reporters weren’t the enemy; they were part of the program. They were the conduit; the bridge between Florida State football and Florida State fans. They brought the magical stories of your program and your players to every home from Sopchoppy to Pahokee.

You’ll be glad to know, Bobby, that the reporters who covered you back then are having a reunion in Tallahassee this summer to celebrate that golden era: a time when FSU football wasn’t just one of the most dynastic programs in the country; it was one of the friendliest.

I’m sure those retired, old FSU beat writers will tell the stories about you and your program over a few beers at the 4th Quarter Bar and Grille on Monroe Street.

They’ll tell the story about when other coaches were shutting down access to the media, you still had your “Breakfast with Bobby” pow-wows with writers and broadcasters at a local hotel every Sunday morning after FSU home games. They’ll recall how — right in the middle of eating your eggs and bacon — you’d actually diagram famous plays like the legendary “puntrooskie” for the media by using salt and pepper shakers, forks and spoons, coffee cups and ketchup bottles.

Or maybe they’ll tell the story about the out-of-town Auburn reporter who was in Tallahassee to do some preview stories before the Tigers were playing your Seminoles in the Sugar Bowl one year. You even invited that out-of-town reporter into practice and also allowed him a last-minute interview with one of your players in the player’s dorm room.

And then when you ran into Auburn coach Pat Dye during a Nike coaching junket in Jamaica that summer, Dye playfully chastised you in his slow-talking gravelly voiced southern twang.

It probably sounded something like this: “Baahbuh … now why you go ‘n spoil my writers like that? Now they’s askin’ about how come I don’t open up practice and let ‘em in like you do. Wantin’ to know why I ain’t sittin’ down to breakfast with ‘em neither. You settin’ a real bad example, Baahbuh … real bad.”

Actually, Bobby, you were setting a real good example.

A great example.

You knew that fans didn’t just want a team to root for; they wanted to feel like part of your family. They wanted to know the stories behind the players, the battles fought in practice, the little moments and tidbits that never make it on an ESPN broadcast.

You gave them that, Bobby. You invited us in, made us feel welcome. You let reporters write stories that made people fall in love with your teams, your players and, mostly, you.

You always understood something that today’s coaches just can’t fathom:

The more you give, the more you receive.

I firmly believe you won FSU’s first national title because not only did the local media appreciate the way you treated them; so did the national media. Remember?

Remember how your Seminoles lost a close game to fellow unbeaten Notre Dame near the end of the 1993 regular season? The loss was significant because it knocked FSU out of the top spot in the rankings and put Notre Dame No. 1.

But when Notre Dame lost on a last-second field goal to a ranked Boston College team the following week, your Seminoles jumped the Irish in the polls (despite losing their head-to-head matchup the previous week), and you would go on to beat Nebraska in the national-title game.

Bobby, you can admit it now. You know that it was your affable, approachable, accessible way of dealing with the press that impacted voters and persuaded them to put FSU into the national-title game.

But now college football feels more disconnected from the fans and media than ever before. Yes, fans and boosters are still expected to write checks, pay exorbitant prices for season tickets, fork over their hard-earned cash for inflated hotel rates on gameday weekends, underwrite bloated coaching contracts that schools can’t wait to buy out … but they don’t get much in return. The relationship between programs and their supporters has turned more transactional than tribal.

The doors are closed.

The fences are up.

The connection is almost gone.

It’s a stark contrast from your days, Bobby.

I still remember on the day you coached your last game at FSU when former Orlando Sentinel FSU beat writer Melissa Isaacson wrote a column about you for ESPN.com. She told some great stories about how you not only gave reporters your home phone number, but how your number was listed in the Tallahassee phone book. She said she was filled with trepidation the first time she ever called you at home.

Wrote Isaacson:

I was nervous until he greeted me like a niece calling to wish him a merry Christmas. … We would speak to him in his office, even before games, if one so desired, which one reporter did at length every single game for years with no objection from Bowden. And at the end of your questions, it was always, “You got enough?”

Did Bowden con all of us in the media into giving him the benefit of the doubt over the years because of his unprecedented access to him and his unfailing good nature? Maybe. But it is hard not to see a man’s sincerity when you are given the opportunity to get to know him, to read his loyalty to players as more faith and forgiveness.

Years after covering Bowden and Florida State, I had the occasion to visit him in his office, and it was still decorated in old-school coach, lined with his trophies, photos and books on World War II, and tinged with that same familiar scent of Bengay and sweat that used to make my eyes water.

“You got enough, gal?” he said.

I’d give anything for one more trip there.

I’d give anything to have coaches still care if you got enough.

We miss you, Bobby.

We miss you now more than ever.

If only Mike Norvell and other coaches of today would remember how you did it.

If only they would realize that the best way to build a program isn’t by shutting people out but by letting them in.

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