Youth and Early Life
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Bowden spent a portion of his childhood in bed, sick. Bowden is the son of Bob Bowden and Sunset (née Cleckler ) Bowden. When he was 13 years old, Bowden was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. After a six month hospital stay, Bowden was confined to his bed at home for just over a year with nothing more than his imagination to pass the time. It was listening to World War II reports on the radio that began Bowden's interest in the war, an interest he still has to this day. It was also around this time that his love for football increased, as he would listen to University of Alabama football on Saturday mornings.
Bowden was an outstanding football player at Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, and went on to play for the University of Alabama as a quarterback, fulfilling a lifelong dream to play for the Crimson Tide. He then returned to Birmingham and married his high school sweetheart, Ann Estock, on April 1, 1949. Today, the couple have six children and 21 grandchildren. Bobby transferred to Howard College (now Samford University). Bowden graduated from Howard in 1953.
Read more about this topic: Bobby Bowden
Famous quotes containing the words youth, early and/or life:
“... though it is by no means requisite that the American women should emulate the men in the pursuit of the whale, the felling of the forest, or the shooting of wild turkeys, they might, with advantage, be taught in early youth to excel in the race, to hit a mark, to swim, and in short to use every exercise which could impart vigor to their frames and independence to their minds.”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)
“Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and organize.”
—Albert Gore, Jr. (b. 1948)
“We realize that we are laggards from the past century, still living in what Marx kindly calls ‘the idiocy of rural life,’ and we know that our rural life is like that of the past, not like that of much of the present.”
—For the State of Vermont, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)