By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The goal of all educators and coaches is to make a meaningful and lasting impact on the lives of their students and athletes. For many, Jack Bowman was the epitome of that ideal. The hall-of-fame coach passed away on Wednesday, Jan. 10, at the age of 89.
Jason Parr won a state cross country title under Bowman in 1999. Parr went on to run two Boston Marathons and coach his own state champion teams. Staying in touch with Bowman on a weekly basis, Parr will deliver part of Bowman's eulogy on Jan. 27. He said everything began with Coach Bo.
"He was extremely patient," Parr said. "He was so brilliant in the way he could get us to do things we didn't think we could do ourselves but he knew it was there. And he coached with such patience. I loved it because it was genuine, authentic, and real. I didn't need a coach to scream and yell at me. I didn't want to break his heart by disappointing him by not doing what I thought I was capable of doing."
Bowman had four children. One of his daughters, Jackie Cook, went on to coach in Ellinwood and Great Bend. Her daughter, Shelly Duvall, also leaned on her grandfather as a successful athlete and coach. Duvall's Lady Panther volleyball team recently broke Jackie's school record for most wins in a season. Duvall said it all goes back to grandpa.
"I would definitely say I was destined to be a coach since the day I was born," she said in October. "Papa Jack and my mother have been probably the two biggest inspirations in my life as far as how to treat kids and love the kids you are coaching, and showing passion for what you do."
Lyles Lashley, the current track and cross country coach at GBHS, was new to the area as Bowman was winding down his career. The two quickly became friends even though track was not usually a topic of discussion.
"It was nice because we talked about fishing and other things when I first met him," Lashley said. "The one thing I did notice with him was every kid he ever coached loved him. He would do anything in the world for those kids. That's one of the main things I tried to learn from him."
Lashley was behind the push to name the annual spring track meet at GBHS after Bowman. In April 2022, the meet was introduced as the Jack Bowman Invitational. Bowman was able to attend his own meet and greet all the current Panther track athletes.
"I thought that was the way to go with what he's done for the community - just the whole area," Lashley said. "He coached at Barton, he coached at Ellinwood. That was one of the main things that we wanted to do was get it done so he could see it and be a part of it, for him and us, too. It was cool to see all the athletes shaking his hand and seeing his family out there. It was a special day."
Even recently, Lashley saw the lasting legacy of Bowman. "We were laying carpet in Burdett," said Lashley. "I looked up and saw a picture of this football team. Lo and behold, guess who the head coach was: Jack Bowman."
Bowman was born and raised in Pawnee Rock. His speed made him a natural talent on the basketball court and gridiron, earning him a scholarship to play both at Bethany College in Lindsborg. One of Bowman's fraternity brothers was a wealthy kid from Cuba, Kan. He did not want to run the 100m dash in the Greek relays and offered Bowman $10 to run for him. Bowman won the race, set a new record, and drew attention from the track coach. He later reset the school's 100m dash record to 9.7 seconds, a record that stood for 21 years. Bowman was inducted into the Bethany College Athletic Hall of Honor in 1995.
After college, Bowman accepted a position in Burdett where he coached football, basketball, and track - and did everything else from driving the bus, mowing the football field, and refinishing the basketball court in the summer.
Bowman moved on to Riley County High School, taking over a football program with just a few wins in the decade before his arrival. Bowman's team won five games in its first season.
In 1960, Bowman took over as track coach at Ellinwood High School. At the time, the school had no actual track. In all reality, Bowman said in a 2015 interview for the Ellinwood Leader, not much had happened with the track program since its inception in 1911.
"Track was just a word they put down," he said. "They didn't know what track was. They had no idea."
The track teams were small then, averaging just about 15 male athletes as track and field was not offered for girls at the time. Bowman used the football field and nearby fields for training.
"The distance runners worked in the fall in the dirt fields," he said in 2015. "We'd run telephone poles out in the fields. We'd run one, walk one, and come in just filthy."
Ellinwood defeated a tough Hoisington team for the 1965 conference track title. With a brand new track on the way and some new success, the program began to grow. Bowman had 54 athletes in the final year without a track, and 74 Eagles went out the year after the school installed a track.
Back then, not all tracks were created equally. Larned had an all-weather track because a local asphalt company installed it. Ellsworth had the only other asphalt track in Kansas. Ellinwood's became the third.
Bowman credits Fred Meyer with almost everything about the new track, from moving the bleachers back, to installing a new drainage system, to putting curbs around the track. Meyer eventually saved the school thousands of dollars by measuring and painting the lines himself.
In the 1960s, high school track athletes were limited to just one race of 440 yards or more, meaning some of Bowman's top runners could not run in a relay if they performed in open events. So the coach turned his practices into the real deal.
"I developed 13 guys who could run the 880 yards in 2:07 or better," he said in 2015. "That same bunch could all run the 400 in 52 seconds or better. Today, you can take a good quarter-miler and run him three times if you want to."
As football and track coach at the school, Bowman was getting a feel for what his athletes could do. He went to the principal and asked if he could start a cross country team. He quickly turned that team into a state powerhouse - even if it meant playing football on a Friday night and making a long trip overnight to win a meet the following day. Bowman's Eagles won state titles in 1966 and 1967.
Bowman moved to Barton Community College in 1969. He was hired as a football coach with one small caveat: the school had no football team. He also helped build the track facility at the college and remained there until 1976. He was inducted into the BCC Hall of Fame in 2008.
Bowman went on to turn Great Bend into a track and field and cross country powerhouse. The Panther cross country team finished second in 1998, then won the Class 5A championship in 1999. Colby Sullivan was a senior for the 1999 championship team. Sullivan recalled an early encounter with Bowman.
"I remember being an eighth grader and going to the state cross country meet," he said. "I ran into the team and was talking to Aaron Kaiser, who was one of my friends. Coach Bo even invited me to come ride the bus with them back to Lawrence to the hotel."
Sullivan dropped all his other sporting ideas to focus on running for Bowman. He was the lone state medalist on the 1997 cross country team that finished seventh at state and is still wowed how Bowman turned that team into state runners-up the following season and state champions the year after that. Sullivan also won two state titles in the 4x800m relay. The 2000 squad of Sullivan, Matt Keeley, Clay Crane, and Colten Bartels still holds the school record.
The 1999-2000 season proved to be Bowman's final season with the school. The Lady Panther track team closed out Bowman's career with three-straight Class 5A runner-up finishes from 1998-2000. Bowman was inducted into the GBHS Hall of Fame in 2009.
"When Coach retired at the end of our state championship year in 1999, I was hurt," Parr said. "I was devastated. But I made a promise I would call him every week, every Friday. And I called Coach every Friday, and have since 1999."
Parr returned from school in Missouri and coached one season of cross country at Maize South. He led both squads to Class 4A state titles in that 2016 season. He also coached five years at Friends University in Wichita. Whenever Parr felt he failed an athlete, he turned to Bowman for advice.
"I'd just pick his brain on what I could have done better," said Parr. "His answer was always, 'Just keep being you and keep loving them and it will keep taking care of itself.' I just loved that. It seemed simple, yet it was. I just stuck to that. I didn't let it get too big. His influence on me hasn't stopped."
One of Bowman's most successful high school athletes was Bobby Williams, a three-time state champion in the high hurdles and a two-time state champion in the 300m hurdles and high jump. Williams' efforts in those three events from the 1994 and 1995 track seasons remain school records and chart high on the all-time state lists. In 2018, Bobby's son, Zach, was a junior at Valley Center High School. Bowman and Williams were able to watch from the stands together as Zach scored a touchdown late in Great Bend's 35-18 win over the Hornets at Memorial Stadium. Zach was a Class 5A state runner-up in the high hurdles in 2019 and joined his father on the state's all-time list in 2018.
Bowman ended up coaching four different sports in five high schools. In 30 years of coaching high school cross country and track, 415 of his athletes represented their schools at the state meet. Sixty-four athletes went on to compete in college. In 2007, Bowman was inducted into the National High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
Bowman's funeral service is scheduled for 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 27 at the St. John's Lutheran Church in Ellinwood.