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Following a passion
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Palestine head football coach Booker Bowie, center, talks to his defense on Nov. 13 in Cedar Hill during a Class 3A-Region III, Division II bi-district game against Mexia. After 32 years of coaching, Bowie has retired to pursue his passion of cookinng. LAUREN KIMBROUGH/For the Herald-Press
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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.”
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Scott Tyler may be contacted via e-mail at styler@palestineherald.com
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