STARKVILLE — Anthony Bowles wasn’t nervous.
Standing on the football field inside Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala., he was about to make his first start for the Mississippi State Bulldogs against the No. 1-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide. The game, two Saturdays ago, was being televised nationally on ESPN. There were 92,000-plus in attendance n his parents included n and he swears he wasn’t nervous.
“To be honest, it was worse having to sit in the hotel before the game,” Bowles said.
At one point before kickoff, ESPN reporter Holly Rowe asked Bowles, off the air, if he was nervous. “No, are you?” he responded.
What Rowe and others couldn’t have known was how long Bowles, who grew up in Greenwood, had been waiting for the moment.
Almost four years before, he had fought his way onto the Bulldogs’ roster as a walk-on, backup snapper on punts, field goals and extra points. Since then, he had practiced for 42 straight games without ever stepping onto the playing field. Although he broke that string for one fourth-quarter snap in the Kentucky game Nov. 1, Bowles’ appearance was officially nullified by a penalty.
Yet, with just three games left in the season and roughly a month before graduating, Bowles, who had dreamed of playing for MSU since he was 6 years old, was getting a chance to start as the long snapper. There wasn’t a single butterfly in his stomach.
“When I got out there on the field,” he said in a workmanlike tone, “I was just ready to do my job.”
Like an endless line of American boys, Bowles learned football with his father on the lawn of his boyhood home.
He grew up in Greenwood, attending Bankston Elementary. Just before his freshman year of high school, his family moved to Grenada. While at Grenada High, Bowles was a linebacker and running back.
“He basically never left the field,” Mike Bowles, who played football at Northwest Community College, said. “He’s always had the ability.”
After graduating, Bowles hoped for a college scholarship. MSU didn’t offer one. Ditto for Ole Miss and Itawamba Community College. Knowing he wanted to major in geoscience, though, he enrolled at MSU.
During the fall semester of his freshman year, he tried out for the football team and didn’t make it. In the spring, he tried again. He wanted to be a linebacker.
During tryouts, the team’s second-string long snapper kept bouncing balls off the ground. That sent then-special teams coach Amos Jones on a search for a new backup.
Jones also happened to be linebackers coach. He asked the unit if anyone had ever been a long snapper. Anthony, according to his father, was the only one who raised his hand.
At Grenada High, Bowles helped out the special teams unit during practices and pregame warmups by snapping for punters and kickers. He had never snapped in a game.
“I was sort of messing around, I guess, just seeing if I could do it,” Bowles said, recalling his audition for Jones. “Well, it turned out, I could.”
And with that, Bowles’ career as a linebacker ended.
“Coach Jones never let me play linebacker again,” he said.
For the next 3½ seasons, Bowles was a member of the MSU football team as the unheralded backup long snapper. His college career has gone virtually unnoticed by everyone outside Truman Fieldhouse in Starkville. Not one of the three dailies that cover MSU has ever interviewed him, and the team’s own Web site doesn’t have a link to his bio.
“The hardest part, for me, was just not feeling like you’re part of the team,” said Bowles.
At times, the quiet, fair-skinned Bowles thought about walking away.
“I wanted to quit a long time ago,” he said Thursday night. “It was hard. I sort of prayed something would happen to take the game away from me. But it never happened, so I just decided to finish what I started.”
His attitude paid off in ways no one could have expected.
In January, Mike Bowles, a salesman in the vegetation management industry, had surgery to remove a brain tumor.
“He’s come a long way,” Anthony said of his father’s recovery.
Although insurance covered most of the hospital bills, “things were stretched pretty thin,” Anthony said. The family had been paying Anthony’s college tuition out of their pocket for four years. Just before this, his final season with the Bulldogs, Anthony was awarded an athletic scholarship.
“It took a load off my parents. They were pretty overwhelmed with everything,” he said of his family’s financial situation. “(The scholarship) was a blessing for sure.”
MSU lost the Alabama game, 32-7.
Because of an injury to the team’s starting long snapper, Bowles knew he was going to start the game, but he didn’t tell his parents.
“I called pretty much everyone in my family except Mom and Dad,” he said. “I wanted it to be a surprise for them.”
During the game, he took the field 11 times n 10 punts and one extra point.
One of his snaps to the punter was high and the kick was blocked, leading to a Crimson Tide safety. ESPN commentators and other members of the press criticized Bowles’ performance during and after the game.
“That’s the life of a snapper. It comes with territory,” he said of the negative comments. “You can make 2 billion great, perfect snaps, but if you make one bad one, everyone says your name. People want to put blame on someone.
“I graded myself an F for the Alabama game,” he said. “A snapper has got to be perfect.”
After the game, his mother congratulated him. His father said simply, “Way to go, son.”
“Going into the season, he was just wanting to get in for one play. That’s what he wanted,” his father said. “He wasn’t expecting to get to start in a game against the number one team in the country.”
Anthony’s mother, Carolyn Bowles, would have understood if her son had chosen a different path after so many hours spent practicing without ever getting on the field.
“I talked about him quitting more than he did,” she said laughing. “A few times I asked, ‘Don’t you want to just sit back and enjoy your time in college?’ He would just say, ‘No, I love it.’”
Mike Bowles is proud of his son’s determination.
“He never complained. He’s not that type of person. Once he’s made a commitment to something, he finishes. He’s going to stick with it until the end,” he said. “That’s always been my thing. If you begin something, end it. His perseverance, his patience, it paid off.”
This Friday, after MSU’s final game of the season against Ole Miss in Oxford, Anthony will take his number 59 jersey off for the last time. When asked what his favorite MSU moment is, he struggles to answer.
“Not the Alabama game,” he said. “Because we lost it.”
He graduates Dec. 13, one day after his 23rd birthday. He’s got an eye on graduate school.
What has playing football taught him?
“Never, ever give up,” he said. “There’s a reason you are where you are. There’s a reason you’re in your spot. Whether it’s to help someone through something, or to just help them in some way, you’re there because you’re supposed to be.”
