BY KYLE LOVERN
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

West Virginia University (WVU) sports journalist John Antonik has a new book which was recently released. The book is titled “Almost Heaven – How Bobby Bowden’s Ten Years at West Virginia University Helped Him Become One of the Winningest Coaches in College Football History.”

Antonik is a very talented writer and historian for WVU sports.

“This is my fifth book on West Virginia University sports, and fourth on Mountaineer football. During other book projects, my interest always seemed to circle back to the Bowden era at WVU because of Bobby’s great success at Florida State and his ordinary time at West Virginia compared to some of the school’s most successful coaches,” Antonik said.

It covers Bowden’s entire WVU tenure from 1966-75 and the circumstances, issues, difficulties, and obstacles that he had to overcome that were unique to this period in Mountaineer sports history.

Of course Bowden went on to coach at Florida State, where he won a couple of national titles and built that program to national prominence.

What were some of the circumstances specific to his time period here that led to this book?

“That was probably my No. 1 curiosity,” Antonik stated.

“When Bobby left West Virginia University in January 1976, he was 46 years old, meaning the greatest successes of his coaching career came when he was in his 50s, 60s and 70s, at an age when most everyone else is considering retirement. He won his first national championship at Florida State when he was 64, the oldest major college football coach to ever win a first national title, and he won his second when he was 70, the oldest to do so. That’s inspiring. Here was a man who believed in himself and used the lessons that he learned at the other places he coached, specifically at WVU, to accomplish remarkable things during the remainder of his coaching career.” Antonik added.

“My focus was primarily on his time at West Virginia, the mistakes that he made and the lessons that he learned from them that not only helped him become one of the greatest football coaches in NCAA history, but also helped put West Virginia University athletics in position for much greater success in the 1980s, when Don Nehlen came along,” Antonik continued.

“This book is a result of interviews, research and access to athletic department resources and documents over my 34 years working for West Virginia University, many overlapping with those who also worked here during the Bowden years,” he added.

“Obviously, there was good and bad when Bowden coached at WVU, and as the late Woody O’Hara once told me about Bowden, ‘Bobby had fond memories of West Virginia, and not-so-fond memories of West Virginia.’”

Antonik encourages people to buy through their local bookstores. If their bookstores do not have “Almost Heaven,” it can easily be stocked.

It is also available through major online retailers Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as through the publisher WVU Press at WVUpress.com.

“For your readers purchasing online through WVU Press, if they include the discount code ALMOST25, they can receive a 25% discount when they check out,” Antonik concluded.

Here is a summary of the book by the publisher:

Bobby Bowden is considered one of the greatest football coaches in NCAA history with 377 wins, the second among Division I coaches. In his 44 seasons as a head coach, Bowden engineered 40 winning seasons, with an astonishing 33 consecutive winning seasons as head coach of the Florida State Seminoles (1976–2009). However, before his time in Tallahassee, Bowden served as head coach of the West Virginia Mountaineers for six seasons (preceded by four years as offensive coordinator).

Although he logged five winning seasons in Morgantown and had an overall record of 42–26, Bowden’s tenure was still controversial, and he was subject to very hostile treatment from some sports fans that was prompted by embarrassing losses to archrivals like Pitt. Bowden’s time coaching the Mountaineers was one of growth and development for him rather than the unchallenged dominance he would go on to display with Florida State.

“Almost Heaven” draws from an impressive array of primary sources, including newspaper articles; football team rosters; internal documents on recruiting; and interviews with former players, assistants, staffers, sports reporters, Bowden’s sons Tommy and Terry, and Bowden himself, prior to his passing in 2021.

The year 2025 represents the 50th anniversary of his final season coaching the Mountaineers, and many of his players are now entering their golden years, making this the optimal time to tell this story.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)