Kelly has turned three minor schools into football powers (relatively speaking, of course) and like any good coach, he has apparently done it with a mixture of fear, intimidation and humiliation. So he's perfect. The only comment worth making at this point is to direct you to this glowing tribute to Kelly from the Elkhart Truth that gives Irish players a little tease of what's in store.

The players were never confused about who was in charge at Grand Valley, Staley said. During the '03 season, Staley was interviewed by the campus newspaper — about "something really minor," he said — and Kelly spoke to him about it afterward.

"He knew about it and he was there," Staley said, "and I don't know if he was listening or what, but I remember after the conversation I was walking back to the locker room and he passed me and he grabs me by the shirt and kind of pulls me up to him so we were eye to eye, and he said, 'Staley, I want you to remember one thing.' He goes, 'You have four touchdowns. You could have 10 if I wanted you to.' And then he walked away.

"I was like, 'What the heck?' He wanted to make sure that every player knew he was in control. That's really what it comes down to. And everybody knew that and everybody had respect for him and he was a phenomenal coach." [Emphasis added]

Of course, it's a fine line between one man's phenomenal, respected coach and another man's unemployed rageaholic. Good luck with those realistic South Bend expectations, though!

Kelly to be next coach [South Bend Tribune]
Media Uninvited From Bearcat Banquet [WLWT]
Ex-player Kelly will '100 percent turn the program around' [The Elkhart Truth]

Completely ignoring the principles of buy low and sell high, Texas has decided to double down on Brown's future—to the tune of $5 million a year until 2016—at a time when the price of that future could not possibly be set higher. He's got an undefeated team with another conference championship (they barely managed that, but it doesn't matter to Brown) and the Longhorns have secured a spot in a second national championship game. The man is flying very high at the moment, so it was essential that he nail down this fat new raise before his team gets crushed by Alabama and his All-World senior quarterback graduates. You've got to spend those bargaining chips while they're still worth something.

Brown is now the highest paid college coach in the land, but if the Texas regents had just waited another month or so, they probably could have got a much better bargain. I guess that's why they're running a state school and not an investment bank.

Mack Brown gets raise, will be highest-paid college coach [Austin American Statesman]

Honorable Mention: John Wall. Knicks fans finally got to see their best player in action at the Garden last night. I just don't get why they make rookies wear those silly blue uniforms.

According to the legends, the practice was first instituted in the 1960's by Bear Bryant at Alabama. His Bear's Angels became a staple of the college recruiting landscape, and in their own way, became more famous than the recruits themselves. The groups were usually created and organized by school officials—these days they are often attached to the school admissions office—but operated in a shady netherworld as a vital part of any large program, yet detached from the athletic department in an intricate web of plausible deniability.

The groups are particularly popular in the Southeast and West and while they are sometimes affiliated with sports like basketball and baseball, they tend to focus on football recruits, which are greater in number and more valuable. Since coaches can't spend more than a few minutes with any single recruit and his family when they come for their 48-hour campus visits, it's up to the hostess to give tours, answer questions, and—in the evening when the parents go back to their own hotels—provide entertainment.

The practice went mostly unquestioned and under the radar for years, but two incidents earlier this decade brought these groups into focus. In late 2001, a female student at the University of Colorado claimed she was raped by football players and football recruits at a party she was hosting on their behalf. (It was the second such incident at CU in five years.) Then in 2003, a campus newspaper's investigation into Arizona State's all-female recruiting group revealed that members routinely supplied underage recruits with wild parties, alcohol and occasionally sex while serving as hostesses.

The ASU article revealed intriguing details about the structure of these groups and their relationships to the teams they support. The Sun Devils coach and athletic director at the time essentially admitted that they knew very little about how the group worked—and that was the way they liked it. According to then-AD Gene Smith:

"When you begin to formalize a relationship based upon a contract — that's why my wife and I don't have a prenup[tual] — you are actually challenging whether or not you have trust in that relationship. I trust our student athletes. I trust the young ladies who have volunteered to be a part of this program. I am not an individual that believes in setting up structure, setting up contracts to make an organization successful."

The team may have been responsible for the recruits' well-being while on campus, yet once they turned them over to these other students the kids were no longer in their jurisdiction. The hostesses were never given orders about what to do—remember the trust?—but they were also never told what not to do. One of the group members told the paper that the hostesses were never given guidance about what constituted a recruiting violation. After all, if they knew what the rules were, then the girls might have to follow them.

Similar tales came out of Oregon and other programs, with many women saying that while the school didn't ask them to do inappropriate things, the recruits themselves often felt entitled to more than just a nice meal. ("One high-profile recruit, she says, tried to lure her to his hotel room, saying, "The girls at Kentucky and Georgia did it.")

There are also two essential facts that every hostess group shares. One, is that they are almost universally female-only. The groups were all given cutesy names like the Texas Angels, the Hurricane Honeys, the Bengal Babes, the Stately Ladies, the Black-Eyed Susans, the Tigerettes, the Crimson Courters (Bear's Angels eventually became the 'Bama Belles) and recruit heavily from the school's sororities. (Those ladies are very big into public relations!)

And the second truth is that if they work for another school besides the one you attend, then they are all whores. (Your girls, on the other hand, are wonderful, fresh-faced ambassadors for goodness and chastity.) No one is ever told to have sex with a recruit or get him drunk or promise him that ménage à trois is basically a freshman seminar, but when a bunch of attractive horny college-age kids get together with a pony keg, nature will run its course. It doesn't take much for a recruit to fall in love with his host and, by extension, her school.

As a result of the ASU and Colorado stories (and other lurid tales of strip clubs and sexual assaults) the NCAA began to crack down on these groups, although obviously they still exist as official organizations at Tennessee and many other places. The NCAA instituted new guidelines in 2004, stating that such groups could not officially be gender specific, although they are still heavily weighted toward the ladies. Shortly after that ruling, the original 'Bama Belles were disbanded.

Risky behavior not policed in ASU football recruiting [ASU State Press, Dec. 2002]
Oregon defends recruiting practices [The Register Guard, 2002]
Doing The Legwork [Sports Illustrated, Jan. 2003]
College recruits and "hostesses": where is the line drawn? [Star Tribune]

Let's just get right to it, shall we?

A significant part of the investigation is focused on the use of recruiting hostesses who have become folk heroes on Tennessee Internet message boards for their ability to help lure top recruits.

[...]

In one case, hostesses traveled nearly 200 miles to attend a high school game in South Carolina in which at least three Tennessee recruits were playing.

Marcus Lattimore, a running back who made an unofficial visit to Tennessee but said he would not enroll there, said multiple Tennessee hostesses attended a game at James F. Byrnes High School in Duncan, S.C., in September. He said they brought signs, including one that read, "Come to Tennessee."

"I haven't seen no other schools do that," he said. "It's crazy."

That's about about as far as the Times article is willing to go, but clearly there is more going on than just some kids holding signs. The NCAA is interviewing current high school seniors about their interactions with the hostesses—it's quite unusual for them to instigate an inquiry on players who haven't committed to a school yet—as the girls would be considered representatives of the university and subject to all recruiting rules.

And what about those message board folk heroes? Well, there was at least one thread on VolNation.com earlier this year, paying tribute to these ladies of football mercy. It is now mysteriously missing, but a tipster was able to snag a few snippets from it. The thread was titled "Meet Your Vol Hostesses" and began with pictures, names and Facebook links for a squadron of Volunteer ladies, along with some veiled thoughts about what these girls are willing to do for their school. The first message on the thread, begins:

These are the unsung heros of recruiting. Just ask Bryce Brown.

Most of the Facebook links are dead (or private pages) as well, but at least one of these girls is not shy about her role in the recruiting process. One is Lacey Pearl Earps, whose name is well known on SEC message boards. (That's her above, with current UT freshman Bryce Brown.) According to her MySpace page, she is a student at University of Tennessee and she "recruits champions." There are numerous photos of her hugging what appear to be Tennessee football players and/or recruits. (The pictures are small, but clearly taken on a football field.)

And the most recent comment left by a friend, is from a young man named Chaz Green, saying that he "had a great visit." Chaz is a 17-year-old offensive tackle from Tampa, Florida, who is listed on Rivals.com with his top choices being Florida and ... you guessed it, Tennessee. He made his on-campus visit in October.

The Volunteers are certainly not the only school to employ these types of "hostesses" or "hospitality" girls, but the school has drawn increased scrutiny from authorities since Lane Kiffin took over the program. They've committed at least six secondary violations in less than a year and Kiffin's habit of boasting about recruits in public—and attacking the recruits of other schools—has made a lot of folks unhappy. This investigation will only shine more light on the practice, not only at UT, but across the country.

Because as Mr. Lattimore puts it, "You don't want to go to a college where they ain't pretty." Ain't that the truth?

N.C.A.A. Is Said to Inquire Widely of Tennessee's Recruiting [NY Times]
Tennessee under NCAA investigation over use of recruiting hostesses [Vol Nation]
[Top photo via Clay Travis]

UPDATE: Miss Earps and the other hostesses are actually in the Tennessee Football Media Guide. She's a captain in Orange Pride, "a group of students whose primary duty is to promote the University and its strong academic programs, rich traditions, and winning athletics program to campus visitors and potential student-athletes." (Click to enlarge the photo.)

UPDATE 2: Clay Travis, who actually knows things like "rules," breaks down what this actually means for Tennessee, specifically what it would take for any of this to be an actual recruiting violation (and how they were likely ratted out by another school.) [FanHouse]

Let's take a look at the people who have a possiblelegitimate beef with him:

Pete Carroll: Weis said his off the cuff comments about USC's coach were taken out of context, but I'm not sure how "He's doing it in Malibu" is out of context. (It being, sleeping with a grad student.) Carroll denied it and Weis apologized (and I guess the entire country has agreed to drop the whole thing?) but true or no, Carroll can't be amused about people asking where he spends his nights. Especially if it's Reggie Bush's old house.

Notre Dame fans: Well, we know why they hate him, but even running their old coach out of town on a rail hasn't stopped Weis from dragging the Irish down further. He convinced their stud junior quarterback to leaving school because no one can coach him up like good old Chuck did, and naturally stud junior wideout Golden Tate was not far behind. So instead of watching that dynamic duo smooth over a tough transition year, expect a more Keystone Cops-style offense in South Bend next season. Yikes.

Clausen/Tate Theoretically, these young men are going to be very rich, very soon and they still believe that Weis is the reason for that. But what if Clausen had gone to USC instead? And Golden Tate had ended up at ... say, Alabama? Or if Weis had simply partnered them with more competent teammates that could have honed their talents, given them a better place to showcase those skills, or possibly given them a reason to return for one more year of seasoning that could have improved their visibility and draft status. (Eh, it doesn't matter. They're still filthy rich.)

Ron Turner: Charlie's college football grave isn't even filled in yet and he's already lobbying for another NFL job. A job that currently belongs to Turner, the Chicago Bears offensive coordinator. The Bears' offense is ... how you say? ... pathetic, so even if Weis can only recreate a fraction of his New England magic that would be a welcome sight at Soldier Field. Of course, if it turns out that sans Brady/Belichick Weis is not much of an offensive genius, well ... hasn't that city suffered enough?

Cincinnati fans: Remember that dream you had of Brian Kelly being the one man who could maybe overcome all that poll nonsense and actually lead your tiny school to an improbable, yet inspiring, national championship run? Yeah, sorry about that.

The economy: Weis was not just Notre Dame's head coach, he was also their offensive coordinator, which means his absence leaves the school without a single human being who can hold a clipboard and shout numbers. Or anyone who has ever played a Madden video game, apparently. That's the reason the Fighting Irish gave for declining all bowl invitations and that decision means either Detroit or Mobile will lose close to $500 in local business revenue. (Also, they think they're better than everyone else and can turn down honors most college athletes would be grateful to accept. Seriously, they should be banned from bowls for five years. Screw those guys.)

So I guess, the only people who aren't furious with Weis at this point are bloggers who enjoy attacking him for being a selfish loud mouth. Bless that man.

The more Charlie Weis talks, the less marketable he becomes [Chicago Tribune]

Today's comes from the SEC championship, where Tebow found Himself standing before the tomb of Florida's season.

Witnesses: 11.8 percent of television households in 56 urban TV markets, the highest overnight rating for an SEC title game

Testimony:

Pertinent Scripture: John 11:35

Jesus wept.

Screenshot via

Please submit any evidence that Tim Tebow is our Redeemer to tips@deadspin.com.

Alabama made Tebow cry and even though Florida was obviously overrated all season (should Percy Harvin get a retroactive Heisman?), the Crimson Tide are clearly the nation's best team. However, there are four other undefeated teams, each with a valid claim to the number one contender slot. Naturally, it will go to Texas ... uncontested. Not because they would theoretically beat any of those other three teams, but because they actually beat 9-3 Nebraska. By one. On a neutral field. After being saved by a replay, because they don't understand how to tell time.

To the BCS, of course, this is vindication. They put the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the championship game! What more do you cretins want? As if there was no possible dispute about who No. 1 and No. 2 should be. (That's the beauty of circular logic.) How can people actually defend a sport where three teams can win every single one of their games—including a team from one of the "power" conferences that actually created the BCS—yet have zero opportunity to win their sport's championship. I still don't see the answer to that question here. Just some nonsense about retired folk who can't afford playoff tickets. Don't you see? They're doing it for you, Mr. Blue Collar Worker! Rich people are so generous, not making you spend your money like that!

Could TCU beat Texas? Could Cincinnati even stay on the field with Alabama? Maybe, maybe not. But I'd sure like to find out, wouldn't you?

Some eyes don't see Texas as clear choice for BCS title game [Denton Record Chronicle]
BCS gets its way with last-second Texas win [SF Chronicle]
Opinion: Bowl Championship Series just makes everybody mad [Ann Arbor]
Boise State, TCU matchup in Fiesta Bowl feels like cop-out [SI.com]

* * * * *

Here are some other big winners, who did not win quite as big.

New Orleans: Whoo boy. That's not dodging a bullet. That was divine intervention. Do you know what "divine intervention" is? God came down from Heaven and stopped those bullets. We just witnessed a miracle and I want you to fucking acknowledge it!

Bruce MF'n Gradkowski: Get on the G-Train! It's always on time! [SF Chronicle]

North Carolina Women's Soccer: Maybe that sport could use a BCS, so that someone else could win the title for a change. [ESPN]

Michael Vick: So .... we're cool now, right? [Atlanta Journal Constitution, USAToday]

The godless, suffering people of Philippines: Not only do they get free SEC Championship shirts, but you-know-who just might be coming down their chimney this Christmas! (After he builds them a chimney, of course.) [Florida Alligator]

And the Weekend Loser? Greg Oden. That poor, poor bastard.

No. There's no chance.

That's the problem with computers. They're so predictable. But how about the other BCS Bowls? Let's look at three prognosticators' bowl projections.

Brad Edwards, ESPN:

BCS Title Alabama versus Texas
Rose Bowl Ohio St. versus Oregon
Fiesta Bowl TCU versus Boise State
Orange Bowl Ga. Tech versus Iowa
Sugar Bowl Florida versus Cincinnati

Dennis Dodd, CBS Sports:

BCS Title Alabama versus Texas
Rose Bowl Ohio St. versus Oregon
Fiesta Bowl TCU versus Boise State
Orange Bowl Ga. Tech versus Iowa
Sugar Bowl Florida versus Cincinnati

Stewart Mandel, Sports Illustrated:

BCS Title Alabama versus Texas
Rose Bowl Ohio St. versus Oregon
Fiesta Bowl TCU versus Boise State
Orange Bowl Ga. Tech versus Iowa
Sugar Bowl Florida versus Cincinnati

Notice any patterns? So yeah, we're pretty much set. But make your contrarian predictions in the comments, and I'll be back with an update should anything absurd happen.

UPDATE: So it was written, so it came to pass. Interestingly, in the final BCS standings, Texas was number 2 in the Harris Poll and USA Today Poll...but behind Cincinnati in the computer rankings. Just sayin'.

•••••

Another weekend in the books. It's getting cold out there, so snuggle up with Tommy, Dash and Daulerio tomorrow.

A mallard was found spray-painted and with his legs bound with duck duct tape at a community college in Albany, Ore, before Thursday's de facto Pac-10 title game. I figure it's OSU students, because Albany is mere miles from Corvallis, and I don't think the kids from Linn-Benton Community College get particularly wound up over the Civil War game.

The duck was taken to a wildlife rehab center, where he might be a long-term resident. Get ready to awwww:

Jeff Picton, executive director of the nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation center near Lewisburg, said Friday the animal was doing OK but could not be released because the paint had destroyed the water-repellent qualities of its feathers. It would not be able to swim.

They'll hang on to the duck until the spring, when hopefully it will molt and grow new, useful feathers.

Remember, folks. Vandalizing a statue of your rival's mascot: okay, even encouraged. Vandalizing an actual animal: not acceptable. This duck's not the one who ran for 166 yards against your team.

Spray-Painted Mallard To Stay At Wildlife Center [Albany Democrat-Herald]

I, like you, was jumping around with excitement when Nebraska took the lead with 1:44 left. This is it! This is the year we don't get two clear top teams! This is the straw that breaks the playoff-averse camel's back! But because college football is high on spectacle but low on fundamental play, it took just nine seconds for Texas to get down to Nebraska's 26-yard line.

An email being forwarded to pretty much every newspaper columnist in the country is trying to claim that since the Big 12's instant replay rules forbid the use of replay after the clock has run out, NU are the rightful conference champs. Nice try, but sorry. The whole point is, the clock didn't run out, even though Colt McCoy appeared to try his best. (That sequence was especially delicious after we had spent the drive putting up with the announcers praising Mack Brown's clock management.)

No, Texas won fair and square, just like Alabama. Tim Tebow's eyeblack highlighted John 16:33, a verse from the Last Supper. You have to wonder if he knew his run defense would betray him. Alabama owned Florida from the start, and Mark Ingram put an emphatic 3-TD stamp on his Heisman application.

Oh, Gators. We didn't want things to end like this. We need a too-perfect, media darling QB in our lives as long as we can get him. We did want to see Tebow crying on the sidelines after his national title hopes were dashed, but we didn't want to see it until the National Championship game.

Oh, Longhorns. We didn't want to see you make it this far. Not the we-only-hung-13-on-Nebraska Longhorns team. They'll be outclassed by the Crimson Tide's running game, and they'll be outmatched on defense.

Here's the worst part of it all: if Alabama had to win, we needed Texas to lose. A high-flying TCU or dark horse Cincinnati would give the title game some novelty, and have the country dissecting the failings of the BCS for a month. But if Texas had to win, we needed Alabama to lose. If we can't have some new faces, we at least need two big-name, dominant programs meeting, even if they weren't the best teams.

Now, it wouldn't have BCS Chaos if Nebraska held on. In decreasing order of likelihood, Alabama would have had to face Cincy, TCU, Florida (yikes), or Boise State. All fascinating matchups, and all great arguments for a playoff.

Here's a good solid prediction for the final BCS standings. You're telling me a four-team playoff, with the Bearcats and Horned Frogs getting their shots at the top two, wouldn't make for a great couple weeks? Even better, how about an 8-team bracket? Alabama would open with a feisty Ohio State, Texas would go up against an evenly matched Oregon, Cincinnati and Boise State would be able to make their cases against each other, and Florida would have another chance to prove themselves against TCU.

That sounds like an amazing month of football to me. And it's what we could have had, if not for the current BCS system. While it would be wonderful to see the rankings flail about to find a disputed No. 2 team, it's a much more damning indictment of the system to have, laid out for us, what we're missing out on.

While Alabama is stoking the fires of a thousand "Dunlap Shouldn't Have Been Suspended" posts, Notre Dame is doing everything it can to make people care after the big sucking silence following its earth-shattering withdrawal from bowl play. Including whispering to the Chicago Sun-Times that the Most Important Coaching Change In College Football will be formalized tomorrow with... the signing of Bob Stoops.

Stoops has already said like five times this week that there is no way in hell he's going to ND. (But nice Google bait there, Sun-Times CMS!) Or maybe I misread, and five Stoops this week have expressed the appropriate amount of horror at coaching the college-football equivalent of a really bad college football team? Because there are lots and lots of Stoops, all hailing from my high school rival, Youngstown Cardinal Mooney (cleverly nicknamed the Cardinals).

Two next-generation Stoops are part of a squad that just demolished the entirety of their division en route to an undefeated season; Ron (Brother of Bob) is the team's current defensive coordinator. While I was catching up on trash talk on the Ohio HS bulletin boards, I came across a rumor that "Stoops" might get a call, and I assumed the chatter was about Ron — hey, Notre Dame has famously reached into the pool of parochial high school powerhouses before. I might discount the possibility of hiring not even the head coach of a high school team (as the tenure of Gerry Faust was and one that was widely considered to be a failure), but that was well before the bar had to be recalibrated thanks to the not-so-little name of Charlie Weis.

I was reading the boards because my alma mater, Ursuline High School (cleverly nicknamed the Fighting Irish), was busy dismantling the entirety of itsdivision, beating the most successful program of recent years (Coldwater) yesterday afternoon 55-21 and setting a whole raft of records. It was the team's third straight title game appearance and second consecutive championship.

Still up this evening is the Division I title game, which features the scrappy Glenville. The Cleveland public school team has already dispatched the monster of St. Iggy, and it was nicely profiled in an up-by-the-bootstraps Times feature today. Did I just post about Notre Dame as an excuse to worm my way around to giving a shoutout to coach Dan Reardon and his team? You betcha.

This is 99, btw.

I was prepared to break out my camera in hopes of capturing memorable footage of angry rivals. Unfortunately, Alabama's fair-weather fans have not sustained the rich tradition of literary invention found throughout the south; their cheers consisted mostly of several hundred iterations of the 'Roll Tide' call and response chant, which were parried weakly by War Eagle chants that grew more dispirited as the afternoon wore on.

But! I did find out this very interesting fact. Did you know Pam Tebow travels the south speaking at a variety of pro-life events every year, telling her inspiring story of how Tebow wasn't even supposed to happen? This probably isn't news to fans of 40 Days For Life, or the volunteers at Necole's Place, but I wondered if Tebow Nation was up to speed on Mom Tebow's extracurriculars. There's even a no-trade clause with God, which is why Tebow has to call his work against Bama today "preaching" and quite possibly why he won't make it to the combine.

So I've been up to my elbows in pro-life propaganda all day trying to find if I was breaking big news or just retreading something reported and tossed years ago. AND THEN THE GAME STARTED. I'd been thinking all day it was at 7 (yeah, yeah). So, hastily, here is the best prognostication blogging's Illuminati can provide: Alabama will jump out to an early lead. Rock on with your SEC Championship Open Thread.

This is 99, btw.

[Image: Tom Landry's Evangelical Comic (courtesy YM's awesome resident graphic novelist Eli Valley)]

Though there were rumors of an offer from the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce Bowl, the Fighting Irish announced they would be unable to accept because of "unique circumstances." Translation: They had to pawn the license of the team bus after they paid 23 bajllion dollars to buy out Charlie Weis' contract and disinfect the air around South Bend to rid it of the miasma of failure.

This is 99, btw.

Irish's season ends with bowl refusal [ESPN]
[Pic via TattooArtists.org]

The letter was typed on the same Florida State letterhead with which he'd wooed a few thousand recruits, and it was waiting in my old office months after I'd cleared out.

"I sure hate it that you won't be with us this year," Bobby Bowden wrote.

You can almost hear him say it. That's because he writes just like he talks, which is also how you'd imagine him talking if you'd never met him before — all that ol' boy Southern speak that's hard to spell even if you make a living transcribing the things Bobby Bowden says. I'd covered his program for a couple years in what then seemed liked the rough days, when everyone was hoping the problem was his son and not the old man himself. When I left the job, I wrote him a note thanking him for his access and wishing him well, to which he responded in kind.

"You have been so good and I have really enjoyed you," the letter went on. "The only thing, with you there, I couldn't address the writers as men. I always had to remember there was one lady present and that was you."

Looking at the letter now, I like to scan down to his signature and then up to my name, which is the best part. He spelled it wrong. "Emily Bulger." Classic Bobby Bowden.

The fact that he couldn't get even his best players' names right is one of those weird tics that jaded sportswriters always found so charming. But it also gets at the tension at the heart of his last decade in Tallahassee: Confusing Drew Weatherford for Chris Weinke isn't so daggum cute when you're not winning — at least, not to the fans.

To the hacks, though, Bowden's retirement represents less the end of a sad family drama and more the passing of a once-prevalent species in major college football — the big-time coach with an actual personality. He was a genuine American coot, and there aren't many of them left today. Along about his fifth decade in the game, coaches' salaries ballooned, and now, on sidelines across America, you find nothing but wax statue after wax statue: the all-business, no-access coach who won't tell you what's on his mind or where he goes to church, and who doesn't even get why anyone would want to know in the first place.

Urban Meyer would never be caught in an unchoreographed moment. Bobby Bowden let us so close we could track the liver spots his straw-brimmed hat couldn't keep at bay. He even let us watch him (and record him) fumbling for the right memories. And then he'd crack a joke, at his own expense, and it was so damn quotable that whichever backup receiver he'd misidentified wouldn't make it into the paper the next day.

Bowden built a national powerhouse at what was once a women's college, and he knew the next biggest thing he brought to town was himself, and so he let people have their piece of him, ask him personal questions and snap his picture wherever he was. He made them feel that of course he remembered that time they first met at the 1984 Pensacola booster club meeting (an implausibility fans gladly pretended to believe), and he tricked half the fans he talked to into thinking their names actually were "Buddy" and "Girl."

In 2006, heading into what would be his worst season in three decades, the College Football Hall of Fame decided to toast Bowden's career before it was over. They bent the rules and brought him in early, a gamble that gave him the Big Moment he didn't get this week. The day the news broke, during ACC spring meetings in Amelia Island, he walked down the hotel corridor toward a small band of stalking media. He was so happy to see even his Tallahassee hacks that he dove right over the gulf between subject and scribe. He planted one on my cheek. That was Bowden.

"I knew you had to retire, you had to be out of coaching, or you had to be dead," he joked of the honor. We scribbled frantically because we knew a punchline was coming. "I didn't volunteer for death, I'm not planning on retiring, so I didn't know anything like this would occur."

Other times, he talked openly to reporters about the endgame he was trying to avoid. You remember what happened to Bear Bryant, right? The guy retired, then died 28 days later.

Bowden seemed to worry that this would be his fate, too, but that's probably not a great reason, in the state of Florida, to keep coaching a football team. This is apparently what all the important people in Tallahassee finally decided in a mess of their own making: They always said the coach could stay as long as he wanted. They built him a bronze statue and a stained-glass window. But then they named a replacement-in-waiting who clearly wouldn't wait all that long, and they finally gave the spotlight to the guy who must have been keeping track of all the things Bowden was forgetting.

The new guy, of course, isn't half as colorful. The thing about being a hack is that that's really all that matters. You can happily go on writing about crummy seasons just so long as someone says something funny, interesting — anything — about them. Yeah, Bowden probably should have ducked out when he lost his edge on the really big-picture stuff — game scores, key plays, whole seasons — but he was a figurehead by the end, anyway, and a daggum good one. You never cared if he didn't remember a name or a face because he always made a point to give so much of himself. That was something Bobby Bowden never forgot.

Emily Badger is a former Orlando Sentinel reporter and a freelance writer in the Washington D.C. area. Online, she lives here: www.emilybadger.com.

Photo via Sports Illustrated