If Bobby Bowden feels a bit lost these days, it would be perfectly understandable. This is the first fall Florida State’s former football coach has had to himself in decades, but he’s settling into retirement nicely.

"This is the first time in 57 years," said Bowden, who retired following the 2009 season with 377 career victories. "I started coaching in 1953 and this is the first fall I haven’t coached. It’s a different experience, but I’m enjoying it."

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Bowden plans to visit Athens next Tuesday for a book signing at Borders (196 Alps Road) in the afternoon and a speaking gig that evening at the Athens Touchdown Club meeting at the Athens Country Club.

Bowden said his new book, "Called to Coach: Reflections on Life, Faith and Football" – co-written with Georgia grad and former UGA beat writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Mark Schlabach – is the eighth book project with which he has been involved.

He said he was more intimately involved in producing this book than the previous seven, however.

"I had more input into this one because I retired," Bowden said. "I could say things I might not have said when I was still working."

Not that Bowden was ever known to be timid while speaking his mind to the press, but he expounds on some of the residual hard feelings from his exit at Florida State in the new book.

He admits that his book tour has helped ease his transition into retirement, as the book hit shelves just before the start of college football season.

Bowden has made no secret of his desire to coach one final season at Florida State before school administrators pushed him out the door, so his book caravan has helped fill the coaching void by keeping him busy and still engaged in the sport.

"I’m 80. If I was younger, I’d been fighting to get back in it, I guess. But it’s not like that when you’re my age," Bowden said. "I was wanting one more year, but they felt like they needed to go ahead and hire a new coach, and so that’s behind me. I’ve been enjoying it."

Bowden said he eventually fell victim to the heightened expectations that exist at winning programs – the same type of expectations that felled his son Tommy at Clemson and that have his protégé Mark Richt on the ropes at Georgia after a slow start this season.

"It’s all, ‘What have you done today?’ " he said. "Tommy experienced the same thing at Clemson. His record for 10 years is probably as good as anybody they’ve had up there, but he hadn’t won a championship. ‘When are you gonna win a conference championship?’ He came out second a couple times, (won) coach of the year three times, but it was still, ‘What have you done lately?’

"There’s no doubt about it, (the exposure and pressure is) greater," Bowden continued. "Coaches make a lot of money, so people expect you to win. But boy, it’s hard to win year after year after year. You just eventually are not gonna be able to (continue). It’s like us, gosh, in the ’90s, we won more than anybody had ever won in a decade. Then in the 2000s, they’re chasing me out of town."

So while he empathizes with Richt’s current plight, Bowden said it’s only natural for fans to turn up the heat on a coach’s seat when things aren’t going according to plan.

In fact, Bowden said, that only becomes more probable when a coach stays at a school as long as Richt has at UGA – this being his 10th season in Athens following 15 years as a Bowden assistant at FSU.

"That’s part of the game. I’ve gone through that everywhere I’ve been, and he’s gonna have to deal with it," Bowden said. "You’re very lucky if you coach anywhere without it. And the longer you coach at a school, the tougher it gets."

Bowden stayed at Florida State for a remarkable 34 seasons, winning two national titles and more games than any coach in the Division I history except for Penn State’s Joe Paterno.

So Bowden knows better than most what it will take for Richt to dig out of his current hole, and he shared a simple piece of advice.

"But there’s only one answer, buddy, and that’s winning," he said with a laugh.

•David Ching is sports editor for the ABH. E-mail: david.ching@onlineathens.com