Legendary college football coach and native Alabamian Bobby Bowden, 90, has announced that he has triumphed over COVID-19.
Bowden was hospitalized October 6, three days after he first tested positive for coronavirus. He was released from the hospital last week, and on Wednesday he released a statement.
“I want to thank all the many people who were thinking of and praying for me over the last few weeks. I just went through a battle with COVID-19 and God just wasn’t ready to take me home yet to be with him,” began Bowden, who turns 91 on November 8.
“[T]he fight was tough, but thanks to the help of Dr. Michael Forsthoefel, and the support of Ann and all my children, I beat it,” he said.
Born in Birmingham in 1929, Bowden went on to be a star quarterback at Woodlawn High School. He went to the University of Alabama as a freshman and was on the Crimson Tide football team that year. Bowden would then transfer to what is now Samford University for the remainder of his collegiate career, playing football and baseball and running track. He even garnered All-American honors at quarterback for Samford his senior year.
His football coaching career also started at Samford, where he was an assistant coach from 1954-1955 and then head coach from 1959-1962. Bowden would go on to become the second-winningest head football coach in NCAA history, also winning two national championships and 12 ACC championships with Florida State. It has been reported that Bowden left West Virginia for FSU in 1976 because Tallahassee was closer to Birmingham, where his mother and mother-in-law lived at the time. The rest, of course, was history.
Bowden on Wednesday advised, “I’ve had a chance to get a lot of wins in my life, but I really wanted to win this one because I wanted to be around to vote for President Trump.”
The coach also credited a drug developed at UAB — with the aid of Birmingham-based Southern Research — for his recovery.
“America is the greatest country this side of heaven,” he added. “We have the freedom to pursue our faith in God our dreams for our career, and our love for our families. For too long now, politicians in Washington have run America down and apologized for our greatness. I’m tired of it. Like President Trump, I had the opportunity to be treated for Covid-19 with drugs to include Remdesivir. At the age of [90], in many other countries, I might not have even been treated. In America, I was.”
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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