Text Messaging Ban Won’t Affect Bowden

Posted Apr 29, 2007 by Aaron Knox

Updated Apr 29, 2007 at 09:08 PM

The NCAA’s crackdown on text messaging isn’t about to change Florida State coach Bobby Bowden’s methods of recruiting. Bowden is about as likely to be seen walking down Tennessee Street chugging a Budweiser as he is text messaging a recruit.
You’ve got to have a cell phone to do that. Bowden says he has one – his wife Ann makes him carry one for emergencies – but he rarely ever uses it.
Bowden, even a decade into the Internet Age, remains old-fashioned in his recruiting methods. He and his assistants like face time with recruits. When it’s time to close the deal, the 77-year-old Bowden will hop on a plane, visit the recruit and his parents – and his grandparents if needed.
He can charm with the best of them and that remains his forte as a recruiter. So while younger and much more technological savvy coaches such as Urban Meyer use every recruiting tool at their disposal and will miss text messaging, Bowen won’t since he never went there.
As for some of Bowden’s younger assistants, well, they’ll have to adjust like everyone else. If they need a refreshener on what life was like before text messaging was used in recruiting, all they’ll need to do is knock on the head coach’s door.