Bobby Bowden

A cadre of murderers and rapists, several of whom victimized young girls, will be set free from state prisons this month after state courts agreed that a decades-old law defined life sentences as only 80 years long. Dozens more inmates could be released in coming months unless the state can figure out a legal recourse to keep them behind bars, officials said. Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, called them "dangerous criminals" who have repeatedly been denied parole. One of the 20 inmates set for release, Bobby Bowden, had argued that a law adopted in 1974 defined life sentences as just 80 years.

As the final minutes ticked away, the Florida State crowd started chanting "Bobby Bowden! Bobby Bowden!" Forty-four years after coaching his first college game, Bowden reached the pinnacle Saturday. He became major college football's winningest coach with his 339th victory and clinched at least a tie for another ACC title as sixth-ranked Florida State kept its national title hopes alive with a 48-24 victory over Wake Forest at Tallahassee.

Bobby Bowden, whose name has become synonymous with Florida State football during the last 14 years, will be offered a lifetime contract at a substantial increase in pay to make him the highest-paid college coach in the state, school officials said today. "I think it's obvious Bobby Bowden has made an outstanding contribution to the football program of this university and the adjustment in the contract will reflect that," said acting Athletic Director Bob Goin.

As Penn State tries to move on following Thursday's grim reminder of how the university failed to stop Jerry Sandusky from molesting boys on its campus, the school announced it is planning to renovate the areas where some of the incidents occurred. A university spokesman confirmed Friday that the school is planning to make renovations to the shower and locker room areas of the Lasch Football Building, saying the move has been in the works since shortly after Sandusky's arrest last year.

Florida State football Coach Bobby Bowden will be offered a lifetime contract at a substantial increase in pay to make him the highest-paid college coach in the state, school officials said Thursday. "I think it's obvious Bobby Bowden has made an outstanding contribution to the football program of this university, and the adjustment in the contract will reflect that," acting athletic director Bob Goin said.

Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden reacted angrily to Ohio State's firing of Cooper. "It's reached an extreme I wished it never reached," Bowden said of his profession. "It's too easy to fire a coach now." The 71-year-old Bowden doesn't have to worry about job security, but he worries about the standards being set for today's coaches. "When you used to go to a bowl, it was a great honor to go to a bowl," Bowden said. "Now, you get fired for going to a bowl."

Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden said a Tallahassee, Fla., police report indicating quarterback Chris Weinke was drunk and belligerent when officers tried to break up a weekend party was unfair and off base. "He wasn't treated fairly and that's getting to be habit forming," Bowden said. "It was blown so far out of whack it makes me sick."

The University of Alabama Board of Trustees reportedly voted 14 to 1 to hire Bobby Bowden as head football coach of the Crimson Tide. But the plan was shelved when Alabama President Roger Sayers objected to the cost of buying out Bowden's contract with Florida State University. Sayers, commenting today on a story in the Birmingham News, said the board did not demand that he hire Bowden or anyone else. But he acknowledged that financial matters were an issue in the search to replace Bill Curry.

After all those years in which missed field goals cost Florida State national championships--"Wide Right I, Wide Right II"--you didn't really expect Coach Bobby Bowden to suspend Sebastian Janikowski for a curfew violation, did you? "Unless he has a heart attack, or unless I have one, Janikowski will kick the ball off," Bowden said Monday. Janikowski is no ordinary kicker, and maybe he knew that when he bolted from the sheets to Bourbon Street over the weekend.

Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden has come under fire for a "letter of reference" he wrote on behalf of former player Michael Gibson, who is awaiting resentencing next month for his attack on a woman who was shot, raped, robbed and left for dead in her apartment a few days before Christmas in 1993. Gibson, 30, received six life sentences. Four were for rape, one for armed burglary and one for attempted felony murder.