Bobby Bowden, national championship-winning college football coach and National College Football Hall of Fame inductee, delivered the keynote address sponsored by Blue Bird Corporation, ROUSH CleanTech and Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems last week at the STN EXPO in Reno, Nev.
The speech centered on leadership and building leaders on your team. Bowden knows a thing or two about leadership, being the college football coach with the second highest number of all-time NCAA victories with 377. He had only four losing seasons in 44 years as a head coach, most famously at Florida State University from 1976 through 2009. During his tenure there he recorded 33 consecutive winning seasons and won two national championships.
Bowden started the address with a short anecdote that told of his connection with student transportation, and more specifically, Blue Bird buses.
“It’s amazing what a small world this is,” he said. “My first head coaching job was at South Georgia College. I found out that as coach, you’re also going to have to drive the bus. I had never driven a bus in my life. Our school had bought a brand new Blue Bird bus…I’d drive the kids to the game. Small world. Here I am 60 years later speaking to Blue Bird people,” he said.
In his speech, Bowden praised school bus drivers for their tenacity in the difficult work they do each day, and likened some aspects of it to coaching sports teams.
“I do admire what you people do. You’ve got to be the most patient people in the world,” he said. “If y’all weren’t there, just think, what would we do about education in America? These are our future leaders. (You have to) be sure you have a game plan if there’s a fight going on. If this happens, if that happens, you probably have a game plan going on just like we do.”
He explained that part of getting a sports team ready for a game involves having a “game plan” to prepare for many of the possible things that can go wrong, such as top players getting injured or the weather being less than ideal. In the same way, school bus drivers have to be prepared for the many things that could go awry while on the road, such as crashes, fights inside the bus or mechanical glitches.
Bowden also emphasized the importance of believing in everything you do. He told a story of how one year at Florida State he let seven freshman players play in a game against a team that was on a winning streak at the time. “We’re going to get killed, but we’re going to get experience,” he recalled. Four years later, Bowden’s team, then led be seniors, won the conference championship with an undefeated record.
He concluded the address by discussing the qualities that make up strong leaders, such as compassion, integrity and kindness, adding that good leaders are not always born but are shaped.
“I always told my coaches, if we don’t have leaders, we have to build them. My thinking is leaders are made, not born. They’re made by going through life and suffering. You only get better with problems,” he said.
