Ex-FSU Head Coach Bobby Bowden Hospitalized 4 Days for Leg Infection

Former Florida State head football coach Bobby Bowden is recovering at home with an infection in his left calf. 

The 90-year-old sought treatment last week at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, where he stayed for four days and was prescribed antibiotics as well as placed in a soft cast, according to Jim Henry of the Tallahassee Democrat on Wednesday.

Bowden's infected leg "ballooned to twice the size" of his right calf, per Henry.

"I didn't realize when I got to be 90 it would be this tough," Bowden told Henry. "Getting old ain't easy."

Bowden also disclosed that his family was not allowed to visit him during his hospital stay because of increased restrictions in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bowden is supposed to have his cast removed at some point this week.

In September 2011, Bowden said on Good Morning America that he was treated for prostate cancer while still coaching the Seminoles in 2007. He chose to keep his diagnosis a secret.

"I did not understand the significance of prostate cancer back then," Bowden told USA Today for a coinciding story at the time (h/t Orlando Sentinel). "What I knew was when something like that happens to a coach and your opponents find out about it, the first thing they say is 'Don't go to Florida State. Coach Bowden is about to die.' If I knew then what I know now, I would have considered it my moral duty to bring it out in the open."

More recently, in November 2018, Bowden spent four days around Thanksgiving at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital with pneumonia.

Florida State renamed its home field Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium in November 2004. Bowden served as head coach from 1976 until retiring in 2009. His football teams went 315-98-4, including 21-9-1, during that span. The Seminoles won two national championships (1993, 1999) with Bowden in charge.