Bobby Bowden recalls the Tide’s inexorable pull

Bobby Bowden never led any of his Florida State teams to the Rose Bowl.

But the recently retired Bowden, whose coaching career spanned nearly six decades, will have an emotional stake in Thursday night’s Bowl Championship Series title game between No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Texas in Pasadena.

Texas Coach Mack Brown is a friend and Florida State alum . . . but that’s not it.

No, Bowden said, “I would have to go with ‘Bama.”

There’s no choice, really.

Bowden’s love affair with Alabama football dates to his youth. Growing up in Birmingham, he idolized local boys who went on to star for the Crimson Tide.

His hero was All-American back Harry Gilmer, who lived four blocks away, attended nearby Woodlawn High and led Alabama to a 1946 Rose Bowl victory over USC.

Bowden, 80, still has a homemade scrapbook from that 1945 season, a collection of photographs and news clippings detailing the unbeaten team’s triumphs and its trip to Pasadena.

On Tuesday, before the Bobby Bowden Award was presented to Texas quarterback Colt McCoy at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes breakfast in Irvine, Bowden correctly named 10 of 11 starters for an Alabama team that routed the Trojans, 34-14.

“Who was the other end?” he said, chuckling.

The 1946 Rose Bowl marked Alabama’s sixth appearance in the New Year’s Day game, an opportunity that ended the following year when the Rose Bowl began its alliance with what are now the Pacific 10 and Big Ten conferences.

The advent of the BCS, and the Rose Bowl’s inclusion in the equation in 1998, reopened the possibility of a Southeastern Conference team playing in a January game in the Arroyo Seco.

But this Alabama team is the first since 1946, when coach Frank Thomas’ Crimson Tide traveled four days by train to hand USC its first defeat in nine Rose Bowl appearances.

“At that time of my life, California was like Russia -- it was waaay out there in Never-Never Land,” Bowden said, waving his hand and chuckling. “I thought I’d never get to go there.”

Alabama dominated USC, Gilmer rushing for 113 yards and passing for a touchdown and center Vaughn Mancha manhandling a Trojans team that scored twice late against Crimson Tide reserves.

Wrote Braven Dyer in The Times: “The obsequies were something fearful to behold and the score does not tell the true story of ‘Bama’s superiority which all but obliterated the memory of eight previous S.C. victories on Pasadena’s famed greensward.”

Said Bowden: “I listened to it on the radio, every bit of it. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

As a boy, Bowden spent hours dreaming of playing for Alabama; he and his neighborhood buddies impersonated Crimson Tide players such as Gilmer and Mancha while playing touch football in the street.

“There weren’t many cars back in those days,” Bowden said. “I would get to be Harry Gilmer. The boy who snaps, he was Vaughn Mancha.”

The boy who most often snapped was John Robert “Bobby” Hill, several years younger than Bowden. Hill went on to attend Florida State and visited Bowden in Tallahassee regularly after Bowden took over as coach in 1976.

To this day, the topic of conversation between the friends routinely hearkens to boyhood days and the Crimson Tide.

“I had a football at that particular time, when everyone didn’t have a football because of the war,” Hill, 76, said by phone from his home in Mobile, Ala. “That made me a little bit popular.

“I’d always have to be the center and go out for a pass. He’d be the guy who’d run and jump in the air and throw it.”

Bowden played at Woodlawn High and attended Alabama as a freshman. But he got married and, as per rules at the time, had to forfeit his scholarship. He transferred to Howard College, now Samford University, in Birmingham, and became head coach at the school in 1959.

However, Alabama played a recurring role in a career that included nearly 400 victories and two national titles.

Bowden told ESPN.com’s Ivan Maisel that Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant helped steer players to Howard if he believed they were not capable of playing for the Tide.

Bowden also credits Alabama with helping him land at Florida State.

Bowden was the coach at West Virginia from 1970 to ’75.Alabama defeated Florida State, 8-7, on a last-minute field goal in 1974, which helped open the door to Tallahassee two years later.

“That got me a job,” Bowden said, chuckling. “They let that coach go and called me.”

Once he was settled in Tallahassee, Bowden invited Bryant to Florida for a few days of golf.

“We talked about a ballgame and he said, ‘In my lifetime, we ain’t going to play ya’ll,’ ” Bowden said. “And he didn’t.”

Bowden did not play the Crimson Tide as Florida State’s head coach until 2007, the Seminoles winning, 21-14, at Jacksonville, Fla.

It was an emotional experience for a coach who loved all things Alabama, including the marching band and fight song.

“Even when I was at West Virginia, I would catch myself in the locker room humming their fight song,” he said. “So when we played them and heard the band play it, it would remind me of being a kid.”

Bowden appeared on track to become Alabama’s coach after Ray Perkins resigned in 1986. But what he thought was a done deal instead turned into an interview.

“Everybody was telling me, ‘We want you as the head coach.’ The governor and everybody else,” Bowden said. “I took the approach that I didn’t want to be interviewed unless they’re going to offer me the job.”

Alabama instead hired Bill Curry, the first of seven coaches who came and went before Nick Saban was hired before the 2007 season.

Meanwhile, Bowden won 10 or more games every season from 1987-2000. “As I look back, I can see I should have stayed at Florida State,” he said. “That’s my place.”

Bowden had hoped that 2010 would be he his final season, but when Florida State administrators suggested a reduced role he retired after last week’s 33-21 Gator Bowl victory over West Virginia.

He finished his 44th season as a head coach with a 389-124-4 record, the Rose Bowl the only BCS game that eluded him.

He will watch the Alabama-Texas championship game on TV, the experience no doubt stirring memories.

“I cried when they lost, that type of thing,” he said, again laughing heartily. “I wouldn’t do that now for nothin!”

gary.klein@latimes.com

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