Former Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden has always been a plain speaker who says what he thinks.
That candor was on full display Tuesday when the 85-year-old retiree called former Seminoles quarterback Jameis Winston “an embarrassment” to the program Bowden built from nothing into a national powerhouse.
“I think it’s a consensus among Florida State fans and boosters that he was an embarrassment in a lot of ways to the university,” said Bowden during an interview on Paul Finebaum’s nationally syndicated radio show. “He won a lot of ball games, probably one of the best football players that ever attended Florida State, but he hurt himself off the field.”
Winston, who led Florida State to a national title in 2013 and was chosen by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with No1 overall pick in last month’s NFL draft, was the subject of a high-profile sexual assault complaint by another student. The perception of a lackadaisical investigation by local police and school administrators received enough public criticism to prompt reforms, though no charges were filed. (He filed a counterclaim against his accuser last week.)
The Heisman Trophy winner also made negative headlines for shoplifting $32 worth of crab legs and crawfish from a local Publix store in April 2014. He was suspended for one game in September for standing on a table in the middle of campus and shouting: “Fuck her right in the pussy.”
Further down the blotter: a July 2012 incident in which Winston was accused of stealing soda from a Tallahassee Burger King, prompting a call to police, and a November 2012 incident that saw him briefly detained by university cops for shooting BB guns on campus.
“The good news is that he’s young enough to get over that, y’know it?” Bowden said Tuesday. “And he’s gotta do that. But he just can’t make those junior high school decisions that he made while he was in college.”
Bowden coached the Seminoles from 1976 through 2009, transforming a team that had gone 4-29 over the previous three seasons into a national powerhouse. His teams finished below .500 just once in 34 seasons and he captured national championships in 1993 and 1999.
