Having a fine old time

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno probably should have seen this coming. They weren't born yesterday.

Since the Orange Bowl matchup was announced a month ago, the two most successful coaches in Division 1-A college football history have tried -- Florida State's Bowden with folksy humor, Penn State's Paterno with a cantankerous growl -- to deflect the notion that their presence is the most compelling aspect of tomorrow's game.

''If Bobby can run as fast as his wideouts, I'll be shocked," Paterno grumpily told reporters a few days ago. ''It's not about Bowden and Paterno."

Yet that is the attraction for many who tune in to see No. 3 and co-Big Ten champion Penn State (10-1) dig in against the surprise Atlantic Coast Conference champion, No. 22 Florida State (8-4).

These two septuagenarian coaches have survived an often merciless business for 40 years apiece. Paterno, 79, has been head coach since 1966, succeeding Rip Engle after 16 years as an assistant. This season was Bowden's 30th at FSU after stints at Samford (formerly known as Howard) and West Virginia, interrupted by an interlude as an FSU assistant.

Bowden, 76, has 359 career victories to Paterno's 353. Paterno has 20 bowl wins, one more than Bowden. Both profess not to care which way the stats tilt in the end, which is not quite in sight. Paterno's contract runs through 2008 and Bowden has a rolling five-year deal that will enable him to leave when he chooses.

They've each hoisted two national championship trophies and produced Heisman Trophy winners. They've coached with their sons, and in Bowden's case, against them. They've survived miscreant players, strategic and technological revolutions in the game, and regular demands for their ''hanging" from disgruntled fans and alumni.

''It's not bad if you don't mind the rope burns," Bowden said last week, playfully stroking his neck.

Entering this season, according to Paterno's official athletic department biography, other Division 1 schools had changed head coaches 765 times during his tenure.

Sports historian and Michigan State University professor Douglas Noverr said the men's durability has made them ''institutions within institutions . . . father figures, symbols of the alma mater."

''Football coaches are looked to for secrets of winning, lessons, patterns of leadership and success, even more so than corporate heads," said Noverr, who has taught courses on sports in American culture.

James Madison University history professor John Sayle Watterson, author of a scholarly history of college football, said Bowden and Paterno have become akin to ''CEOs or generals" in the public's perception by ''winning, staying at the top of their profession, and being successful entrepreneurs."

A statue of each man stands outside his school's respective football stadium. Former FSU wide receiver T.K. Wetherell, who played when Bowden was a Seminole assistant in the mid-1960s, is now the university president. Penn State named its library after Paterno, who, along with his wife, Sue, has donated $4 million to the university.

Reaching this game was redemptive for both coaches. Florida State got there courtesy of an upset win over Virginia Tech in the ACC championship game after losing its last three regular-season contests.

Paterno rebounded from his most demoralizing season ever. The Nittany Lions staggered to a 4-7 record last year -- their fourth losing season in the previous five. Top university officials at one point asked Paterno to account for the string of dismal performances.

''I said, 'Look, everybody, relax,' " Paterno said last month. '' 'If I can keep my staff together, we'll surprise a lot of people.' Thank goodness I had enough clout that I could get them to relax."

This clash of coaching titans has prompted much reminiscing by two entertaining storytellers: Paterno with a grudging, nasal delivery, Bowden with the charm of a Southern raconteur.

There was the time in the spring of 1962 when Bowden traveled from Birmingham, Ala., to State College, Pa., hitchhiking the last few miles, to soak up wisdom from the Penn State coaching staff where Paterno was still an assistant. There was that period in the early '70s when Bowden's West Virginia teams were routinely pasted by Paterno's Penn State teams.

There was the incident at the 1990 Blockbuster Bowl in Dolphins Stadium -- the last time the coaches were on opposite sidelines -- when Paterno went ballistic at the sight of a Florida State Seminole mascot charging onto the field on horseback, sure the horse would leave behind an unwelcome pile of fertilizer.

''I thought he was gonna go tackle the dadgum horse," Bowden said.

Paterno frowned at the memory, then mimicked the animal's snorting entrance. ''That darn horse," he said. ''Is he gonna be there? I'm gonna make Bobby ride him, or at least clean up his dirt." (The horse, Renegade, rarely attends away games and will not be making an appearance tomorrow.)

The men have been quizzed endlessly about their relationship and their ability to overcome the prejudice often attached to age. When Bowden was asked how it felt to watch Paterno prosper this season, he threw back his head and laughed.

''I can't tell you how good it felt," he said. ''I've always used Joe as a gauge."

The Italian-Catholic Paterno was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. The devoutly Baptist Bowden is a Birmingham, Ala., native. Yet the dense weave of their careers holds many common threads.

They have a combined 100 years of marriage, 11 children, and 35 grandchildren. Joe and Sue Paterno, who sews her own clothes and still occasionally tutors Penn State players, have lived in the same house for 40 years. Bowden and his wife, Ann, who eloped as teenagers 56 years ago, remain in the home they moved into in 1976 when FSU hired Bowden at an annual salary of $37,500.

Paterno has missed two kickoffs in his 55 years on campus, once when his father died and once when one of his sons was in a car accident. Bowden, according to FSU sports information director Rob Wilson, hasn't missed a game in 30 seasons.

Neither man has had any serious health problems, although Bowden was diagnosed several years ago with Type-2 diabetes and manages it through diet. He rises at 4 a.m. to read the Bible and has been a student of World War II since he contracted rheumatic fever at age 13 and listened to wartime radio programs while confined to his bed for nine months.

Paterno, an opera buff, also enjoys history and is currently reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln. He isn't terribly interested in modern forms of communication, failing to realize that he had an e-mail address until he was told he had thousands of unanswered messages. He celebrated his 79th birthday in Florida Dec. 21 by supervising two-a-day workouts, then dining with the team.

With the passing years, both men have become more administrators than hand-on coaches, delegating responsibility to their large staffs. Each has two assistants with more than 20 years' tenure.

Yet both elder statesmen still relish recruiting, which has been known to wear out much younger men. Bowden, a power-napper, said he enjoys the extra rest he gets on plane flights, with no phones ringing. ''I sleep better moving than in my own home bed," he said.

Bowden makes some 50-60 speaking appearances a year, about half for FSU's booster tour and half for faith-based organizations. His salary, endorsements, and personal appearances, all handled through FSU's marketing arm, net him $2.5 million a year.

Paterno's earnings are a literal state secret; the university has appealed a court order to disclose the figures following a newspaper's request. He limits his outside engagements and is choosy about endorsements, although he still plugs for a local bakery and recently invested in a company that is building an off-campus retirement community.

Both men have deals with Nike, and socialize once a year -- confiding their worries and discussing the unique demands of their jobs -- at a coaches' gathering convened by the sportswear giant.

Their desire to stay in the game is colored by some not-so-distant history. Alabama's Bear Bryant, the man both passed in career victories, died a month after leaving the field. Bowden's father suffered an aneurysm and died at 64, a year after he retired from his real estate job.

Bowden jokes that he'll ride a tractor mower on a golf course to occupy himself in later years, but adds that his father's death ''made me more conscious that a man needs a motive to live."

Paterno, whose very stubbornness is his lifeblood, said he doesn't dwell much on mortality.

''I probably would think about that if my grandkids would leave me alone," he said. ''Every time I start to sit on my sofa and think about when I'm going to die, some 9-year-old kid comes in . . . I have never given thought to it, to be honest. I'm having a good time and, hopefully, I can do it for a while."