Local Sports
Following a passion
Bowie retires as coach to barbecue
By SCOTT TYLER
Sports Editor
For 30-plus years, Booker Bowie’s passion was coaching.
Bowie has another passion now and he feels like it is time to pursue that one.
Bowie retired this week as athletic director and head football coach at Palestine High School to go into another business — cooking.
“I felt like it was time to pursue another love,” Bowie said Friday, his last day at Palestine. “I want to be able to do something different while I am able to.”
Bowie coached various sports at the high school level, including football and track, for 32 years — including being Palestine’s head football coach and athletic director the last two years.
“We understand that coach Bowie wants to try and different endeavor and I think we can all learn from him,” Palestine Independent School District Superintendent Dr. Thomas A. Wallis said. “We wish coach Bowie the best of luck and he is going to be missed.”
For Bowie, it will be the relationships he has built for more than 30 years that he will miss the most.
“It is the relationships that I have built with the coaches and the players,” Bowie said. “You make life-long friends through coaching.”
Bowie spent most of the decade as a Wildcat. He started at Palestine High School in 2002 as the defensive coordinator for football and the head boys’ track coach.
He kept those positions until 2006 when he stepped down from coaching and first thought about retirement. Bowie came back to Palestine ISD the follow year, but as an administrator and for the first time in 30 years was not involved in coaching a sport.
But in the 2007 school year, Bowie was made interim athletic director at Palestine when Glen Tunstall was reassigned. Three months later, Bowie was named the athletic director and head football coach.
“I have had a wonderful time here,” Bowie said of his tenure at Palestine. “We have had some wonderful years and had some good athletes come through.
“I have meet some good people and it has been entertaining.”
Bowie helped get Palestine back to the playoffs after a two-year postseason drought. This season, the Wildcats finished at top of District 20-3A and Bowie was named the Coach of the Year in the district.
“It is a good time to go out,” Bowie said. “Everything ends on a good note.
“Hopefully the team is headed on the right track.”
As for his new project, Bowie has had his own barbecue business for three years.
“I have a mobile pit, so I am able to travel around East Texas and do functions for schools and churches,” Bowie said. “It is kind of like coaching because you get to be around people.”
While a small restaurant may be in Bowie’s future, right now he is happy with being able to travel with his pit to different location.
“I get to meet a lot of different people this way,” Bowie said. “I really enjoy doing it.”
————
Scott Tyler may be contacted via e-mail at styler@palestineherald.com
- Local Sports
-
-
Eastern Turkeys: Looking back, planning for the future
For years, the eastern wild turkey restoration project that was completed in the early 2000s in dozens of counties across East Texas was regarded as one of the greatest wildlife management success stories ever carried out in this part of the world.
-
Twice as nice
AUSTIN — After Thursday’s Class A, Division I state semifinals, Cayuga head coach Greg Jenkins sounded like a broken record, talking about how it was not going to be a cakewalk to the state title. -
Cayuga freshman saves the day
AUSTIN — When Cayuga came onto the court to get the first-place medals for winning the Class A, Division I state title, freshman Preston Anderson had a camera and was taking pictures of around the Frank Erwin Center.
- Cayuga wins state championship
-
Slocum falls to Nazareth in the state semifinals
AUSTIN — Slocum’s chance of two straight state titles were dashed Friday night by the team they beat last year for the championship. -
Wildcats set for tough test in state championship
AUSTIN — The Cayuga Wildcats are in the state championship game. Now comes one of their toughest tests.
The Wildcats will play Bronte in the Class A, Division I state championship. The game will be at 8:30 a.m. Saturday at the Frank Erwin Center on the University of Texas campus. -
Cayuga headed to state finals
AUSTIN — Coming into the Class A, Division I state semifinals, it was Spurger who was going to rely on the three-point shot.
By the end of game, it was Cayuga who used the shot from behind the arc to its advantage.
The Wildcats defeated Spurger, 82-48 Thursday morning at the Frank Erwin Center on the University of Texas campus. -
Suffocating defense
SLOCUM — In the regional quarterfinals, Slocum struggled to hit a shot for the first three quarters against Miller Grove, but their defense kept the Mustangs in the game until Slocum found its range in the fourth for the win.
-
Slocum ready for Nazareth’s best
SLOCUM — All year long, the Slocum Mustangs are used to having a target on their back.
-
Leading the way
When the University Interscholastic League’s boys state basketball tournament starts Thursday, a pair of Dogwood Circle teams — Cayuga and Slocum — will be aiming for a state title.
And leading those two teams are a pair of coaches who have helped put their programs on the basketball map. Cayuga head coach Greg Jenkins and Slocum head coach Jay Bruce know each other from their teams playing one another and watching each other’s team. Each coach has a huge amount of respect for the other.
- More Local Sports Headlines
-
