Bobby Bowden on education & discipline

FSU coach Bobby Bowden in a recent interview offered some interesting remarks on education:

"These kids that we get nowadays, they come in and do this wrong. You shouldn't steal. You shouldn't do this. Their parents have got to teach them that. And it's got to be done when they're 2, 3, 4, 5 years of age. And kids aren't getting that anymore because the daddies ain't home. The daddies are all gone. And a boy needs discipline. He needs discipline from a male. Not a mama. They all want to wear earrings like their mama. They all want to look like their mama. Because their mama is raising them."

Q. Do you still feel like you relate to 18-year-olds or 20-year-olds?

"I don't believe in a lot of things they're doing now. I sure don't believe a lot of things they're doing. But I'm sure I could talk to them about it, and I do, in certain circumstances. They (say), 'Well everybody else is doing it. Everybody else is doing it.' Yeah. But the Book says you can't do that, son. The Book has said for 2,000 years that you can't do that."

Q. When kids come in and do things wrong, some people attribute that to the star treatment they get at programs. Bit programs like yours, even.

"It's probably true. A lot of that is true. There's no doubt about it. A lot of our problems are perpetuated by us coaches. We baby them. We give them this and we give them that. When I went to college, nobody told me to take English. Nobody told me what courses to take. Nobody told me where the library was. Nobody ever told me any of that stuff. But now we get their classes for them and we check and see if they went to class. I think we're probably our biggest enemy sometimes."