There is much chatter about the impending auction of Coach Bowden’s estate, including the family home in Killearn and most of the contents, collected over a career spanning 56 years from 1953 through 2009, including 48 years as head football coach.
Knowing the family, it’s safe to assume that Coach was part of this discussion long before he left us at age 91. He would have given his approval for the eventual auction and sale. Scheduled for March, the auction may take a number of days, or even weeks.
It took decades to auction off all of Frank Sinatra’s possessions. Jewelry, scripts, art, and even homes were included in auctions that began soon after his death, with most proceeds benefitting approved charities. Even more than 20 years after he died in 1998, the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas finally got around to auctioning the contents of Sinatra’s private suite. Items ranged from the mundane, to gold-plated commode seats.
Sinatra’s friend and fellow entertainer Tom Dreeson told how Sinatra once gave his expensive cufflinks to the wife of an ailing fan. After a show, he noticed a woman desperately pushing forward seeking his autograph.
“My husband is very sick,” she said, ”And he is your biggest fan. Please, if I could just take him an autograph it would mean so much to him.”
Sinatra signed the autograph, then removed his expensive cufflinks, telling her to give them to her husband.
Dreeson said those cufflinks were Frank’s favorites, but the gift was typical of Sinatra’s generosity. “After I die, someone else will be wearing my cufflinks, living in my house, driving my car…maybe even singing my songs. If you own something you can’t give away, then you don’t own it. It owns you.”
Bobby Bowden, Frank Sinatra and Roy Rogers were iconic characters who helped define American popular culture in the 20th Century.
All were raised in modest, American middle-class homes. Each was representative of his region: the good old southern boy, the New Yorker and the western cowboy. All had musical backgrounds. Each man discovered early in life the path he would follow.
Roy Rogers was America’s favorite singing “King of the Cowboys,” or words to that effect. He was wildly popular, wholesome, humble and moral. He never killed a bad guy; he just shot the gun out of the bad guys’ hands. Then there would be singing.
The Roy Rogers Museum was a paradise of memories for fans. Trigger the Wonder Horse (“who could perform more than 100 tricks”) was immortalized through the magic of taxidermy. The same was true for the faithful hound Bullet (“posed in an alert stance”). Fans could interact with lavish displays of personal items from Rogers’ career, plus all of his movies and reproductions of his television series.
Rogers, like Sinatra and Bowden, knew the truth about fame. Three years before Rogers died in 1998, he handed a letter to his son Dusty, detailing his wishes for the disposition of the Museum. “When people stop coming; when expenses become greater than the income, close the doors and sell it all.”
The Museum closed in 2009. Christies International handled the auction.
Every ambitious performer, football coaches included, wants to market their personal brand most effectively. Over time, Francis Albert Sinatra became simply, ‘Frank.’ And eventually, Leonard Sly became ‘Roy Rogers.’
Very early on, Bobby and Ann discussed how he should present himself. Should Robert Cleckler Bowden adopt the more refined and polished name of ‘Robert’? Or does the more straightforward ‘Bob Bowden’ suggest a serious, no-nonsense professional? Finally, ‘Bobby Bowden’ was the choice. The southern football coach from Birmingham now had a southern name and a recognizable identity.
Bobby’s long coaching tenure ended four games after his 80th birthday. Those 56 years included 47 as a head football coach at South Georgia College, Howard, West Virginia and FSU.
There will be plenty of shiny things at the auction — trophies, plaques, declarations, signed footballs, pictures and hats — to boost the spirits of Seminole collectors who treasure the years of triumph, and who honor the man whose charm became the identity of our program for millions of college football fans.
However, if your tastes tend to the more personal, and you’d seek to acquire an item more unique and distinctive to the man, let me offer three suggestions.
First, bid on the piano.
I came to the Bowden home one evening to pick him up before driving hours to our next Spring Booster Tour stop. The house was empty, but I heard piano music playing Three Coins in the Fountain.
He was there waiting in his travel suit and tie. Seminole fans know that Bowden could sing and that he played the trombone in high school. Few knew he played piano and that he could ‘read’ musical scores.
He told me that his mother paid for lessons. “Anyone else in the family play?” I asked. “Naw, just me.”
He told me long ago that Three Coins in the Fountain was his favorite song. Why that song?
He shrugged, “I don’t know why. I suppose it just reminds me of something special.” When the family was out of the house and there was no football to watch, he would sit at the keyboard and hum and play songs that suited his thoughts.
The second item you might consider bidding on is his favorite pair of black shorts, if you can find them. They may have been stuffed into a drawer and forgotten by now. Bobby Bowden the icon was sociable, but in his private life he valued his solitude when he could have it.
He would laugh as he described the joy of stripping down to nothing but that pair of oversized black shorts and lying on the couch to watch football, with the TV remote in one hand and a Goo-Goo Cluster or bottled Coke in the other.
The third item I‘d recommend for you will probably be found in the record cabinet. Of all the music he enjoyed, The Mills Brothers were his favorite.
In 1943, Bowden was confined to bed for a year with rheumatic fever. The 13-year-old could listen to war news and music on the radio. The Mills Brothers Quartet had the No. 1 hit on the Billboard Chart for 12 weeks in 1943.
He said, “It’s the beat. That solid beat.” He’d slap his hand hard against the car seat and sing, “Cab driver, stop by Mary’s place.”
I’ve always thought the hard beat was one reason he had such affection for the Marching Chiefs. Their passion always kept the game and the energy driving forward.
Somewhere in that house there is probably a collection of ancient 33 rpm, maybe even 78 rpm vinyl records by the Mills Brothers. Those discs will still show evidence they were handled and loved by a man who treasured them as a boy.
Seminole fans may imagine there is something magical, even unique about the Bowden family home in Killearn. He became a legend; they made friends and raised their children there, one of whom played for the Seminoles.
But they also had a fine home in Morgantown, where they also had friends, raised their children and two sons played for the Mountaineers. And they also owned a home in Birmingham at Samford University when he was head coach, where they had friends, and raised their children (there are worlds of Bowden children and grandchildren).
Yes, FSU preserved the Bowden legacy by installing a statue of our legendary Coach in front of Doak Campbell stadium. But there’s also a statue of Bobby Bowden in front of Samford’s Siebert Stadium in Birmingham. Bobby has never belonged just to us alone.
One final note. Three Coins in the Fountain was a movie from the early 1950s. Frank Sinatra sang the theme song in the movie’s opening sequence, but it was still early in his career and Sinatra’s name did not appear in the credits. Later, it became a signature Sinatra hit.
The song, Three Coins in the Fountain won the Academy Award in 1955. That was also the year that Bobby Bowden first became a head football coach.
“I suppose it’s just because it reminds me of something special…”
Bobby, Frank and Roy. Every great American icon leaves their mark on the culture. Their ability to touch our hearts doesn’t end when they depart. It’s left to us to enjoy sorting through the debris of lives well-lived to find something of theirs that might be meaningful to us. Something special.
We yearn to keep some artifact of remembrance until it’s time for us, too, to leave the world behind.
Happy Trails to us all, till we meet again.
Publisher’s note: For 30 years, former Seminole Booster Executive Director Charlie Barnes was to Bobby Bowden what Ed McMahon was to Johnny Carson as they entertained hundreds of thousands of Seminole fans at Spring Booster Tour events and Monday Bowden luncheons.
Barnes shares memories of the Bowden Family Home, which will be sold in an online auction, along with thousands of personal items, awards, and memories, starting March 3 at 8 am EDT and ending March 17 at 6 pm EDT. An extensive list of items may be viewed here but please note the piano is no longer available.
