The Life of Chuck Bowman:

“Chuck showed me that you don’t build ‘a ministry,’ you build ‘people.’ People are built by developing and investing in relationships and honoring Christ in all you do.”
~John O’Dell, co-author of Godly Influence On and Off the Field: The Life of Chuck Bowman

Chuck Bowman, 1954 Ponca City High School graduate, was a standout in football, baseball and wrestling during his youth. Bowman was one of the sons of Clarence and Jessie Bowman. His father worked for Marland Oil Company/Conoco; and his mom raised the family, taught Bible classes at First Baptist Church for 60 years and made sure her children recognized the importance of God in their lives. Chuck and his closest brother Dick had three older sisters and one brother who were married and out on their own when the two younger brothers came along—Dick when his parents were 40 years old and Chuck when they were 45. Besides a hardworking father and strong, faithful mother, Bowman’s life is also littered with names of long-term Ponca Citians and other Oklahomans you will recognize from history and their importance to sports.

He was coached here by Earl Sullins, whose name adorns the football stadium. Bowman was an All-American football player his senior year, captain of the baseball team and co-captain of the wrestling team. When asked how he decided which sport to proceed with when moving onto college after such success in all, Bowman says, “It really came down to my brother.” Dick had been a football star and was five years older than Chuck. It felt right to follow in those footsteps, but one night almost made him lose that dream.

After a horrific accident with a drunk driver when he was a high school senior, Bowman was saved by Dr. E.C. Yeary who had been a WWII battlefield surgeon in the military. He spent nine days in a coma and 10 weeks in the hospital healing from extensive internal injuries. He had lost 50 pounds during this time, and he knew the road back would be tough. Dr. Yeary told him his organs were not where they should have been after the accident, and they “lost him three times” during the surgery. High school principal Homer Anderson told Chuck that every morning a teacher or classmate would say a prayer for him over the loudspeaker. Bowman says, “Not one time during those 10 weeks did I ever feel like God had deserted me.” Various college coaches came to visit him after hearing of the accident, and OU football coach Bud Wilkinson assured him he would have the promised scholarship regardless of his abilities after recovery.

He continued to heal and become stronger at OU in 1954 when he was a freshman working with assistant coach Port Robertson. The coaching staff had determined he should sit out that season and work on his strength. In 1955, OU won the Orange Bowl. It was in his junior year that three professional players—football players Doak Walker and Otto Graham and baseball player Pepper Martin—spoke to the OU team representing the Fellowship of Christian Athletes ministry, with the group encouraging the athletes to share their testimonies with youth. The organization had its strong beginning in Oklahoma, and Coach Wilkinson was one of the many coaches who endorsed the ministry. OU’s 1956 team went undefeated and was again national champion. By now, Chuck knew he wanted to coach. He remembered his feelings hearing the athletes give their testimonies, and he thought, “I may not be able to do that as a professional athlete, but I can as a coach.”

Maintaining his faith was something his mother had always prayed for throughout his life. All through his youth, Bowman’s mother would tell him she’d prayed for him daily, and each time it was that he would become a preacher. He would, in turn, tell her he was going to be a football player. It was time for his life with football to move from teammate to coach.

After college graduation, Bowman began his high school coaching career. At one point, his brother (who later coached at West Point) was headed to Ponca City to be the head football coach and invited him to come home to coach alongside him. Instead, Chuck explored another opportunity in Tulsa. Tulsa was expanding to include two additional high schools, and there were interviews for all sports. Bowman interviewed for, and was hired as, football coach and to assist wrestling coach Ned Blass, a Ponca City native. The school also hired Eddie Sutton as head basketball coach and assistant in a couple of other sports. Sutton and Bowman began a friendship that would remain the rest of their lives. It was also here at the high school that Bowman met another single teacher with whom he would spend the rest of his life, Betty Dobbs—a woman who shared his focus on faith.

Character and integrity had always been front and center in his life, which led him to his career with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). He fondly recalls walking over to First United Methodist Church from Ponca City Junior High, now East Middle School, to hear major league baseball players Allie Reynolds of the New York Yankees and Dale Mitchell of the Cleveland Indians speak. This was arranged by Don McClanen long before he started the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which would become the world’s largest sports ministry and a major mission in Bowman’s own life. He still remembers their speeches and those he heard from other athletes later in his college career—about five minutes focused on their sports careers and the other 10 minutes each talked about their faith. He recalls that each of them discussed their mother’s influence on their faith, something that he had experienced in his own life.

Bowman went on to a five-year career as coach at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College (NEO), where he could both coach and mentor the young men on his team. His first recruiting class included Mark Driscoll, an All-State linebacker from Ponca City who was named outstanding defensive player one of NEO’s championship years and was named All-American along with three of his teammates. Bowman was named NJCAA Coach of the Year in 1969, and Driscoll went on to start as linebacker at OU in 1970 and 1971.

Bowman would serve as head coach at NEO from 1967 to 1972, and he considered those years a blessing. He had two national championships, nine All-Americans, dozens of athletes who went on to Division 1 schools, seven athletes in the NEO Athletic Hall of Fame, five who played professionally and he was named national junior college coach of the year twice.

After this time at the college, he went to Dallas for a position outside of sports but was soon offered the opportunity to head the Fellowship of Christian Athletes back in Oklahoma. The organization knew they needed more focused leadership in the state, and he was the one to do just that. Betty knew immediately he should consider the offer; he prayed on it; and it was an easy decision after the ways sports and faith had influenced his life.

However, that didn’t mean it was easy. The funds for Oklahoma were nonexistent, so he immediately had to begin fundraising. He called on college teammates to speak at dinners, and FCA in Oklahoma took off. He had assumed the position in March of 1973 and had quickly raised enough money to cover six months of expenses. He knew people currently in sports or who were past players or coaches, and they respected him.

Bowman says that although the formal position with FCA was his, its success was both his and Betty’s. They worked as a team through the years, and Oklahoma’s organization grew with the speaking engagements, fundraisers and school chapters called “huddles.” His speaker’s bureau grew and more outreach occurred with that growth. By 1976, 750 high school athletes attended a retreat in Guymon and nearly 400 attended OU FCA Day that April. The organization continued its growth from there. At the end of the 70s, there were 136 high school chapters, 30 junior high and 27 adult chapters. Later fundraising included concerts and auctions of sports memorabilia. Bowman and Oklahoma’s success in fundraising and maintaining the ministry were great accomplishments.

As a matter of fact, when the National FCA organization had financial issues in 1992 and was facing restructuring and considering the changes needed to become solvent and successful, Oklahomans assisted in the plan for moving forward. In 1993, Oklahoma’s Endowment Fund was in such good shape, Chuck requested permission to loan the national FCA $50,000 interest-free to help them avoid bank debt as they continued with their new plan.

Success was continuing for the organization and those involved. Bowman recalls when his mom attended one of the large events with about a thousand high school kids in attendance. Mrs. Bowman was able to see her son minister to all those young people. This was when his mother saw her prayers had indeed been answered. The son she had hoped would be a preacher ended up in a position where he used his faith to influence many more than he likely ever would have at an individual church.

Chuck retired in 2003 with over 30 years of service to FCA, and he and Betty live in Edmond and celebrate 66 years of marriage this summer. They have two children, Brad, who is an eye surgeon and is married with three children and two grandchildren, and Becky, who is a counselor who has worked with hundreds of elementary school students. They are proud parents, grandparents and individuals who continue to reap the benefits of all those they have supported over the years.

At a mere 90 years of age, Bowman and Ponca City friend and classmate Beverly Smith still meet up for lunch, and the two of them were responsible for beginning our Po-Hi Alumni Foundation after Chuck spoke at one for another community and thought it would be a good idea here. He was inducted into that Hall of Fame in 2018. Although his awards are too many to list, a few notable ones are the FCA Hall of Champions in 2019 and the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 2022. He was recently honored at NEO with the dedication of the Chuck Bowman Locker Room, following a capital campaign to renovate the football team’s locker room into a state-of-the-art facility, and with the Coach Chuck Bowman Endowment, an annual scholarship to provide support to NEO football student-athletes.

Chuck Bowman is a humble man who gives all credit to God. He laughs as we talk about the 2022 book written about him entitled Godly Influence On and Off the Field: The Life of Chuck Bowman. Chuck says, “It started as a little Reader’s Digest size, and then they saw all those pictures, and it turned into a Sears Catalog.” If you are interested in seeing the many athletes he coached and mentored, as well as the coaches and celebrities he has worked with, pick up the book and read more. The book is filled with interesting information, people and photographs. Bowman continues to reach out to those in need, continues to mentor the many he has cared about over the years and to fulfill those prayers of his mother by living his life in the faith she bestowed on him throughout hers. As Chuck Bowman says, “That’s how God works.”