Rick Bowie arrived at his local rec league at 7 years old with his sights set on following his passion for playing soccer.

However, there was one issue. The line for soccer on the right was drastically longer than the line for football on the left. So for this the pragmatic kid, his decision was easy.

“I decided to turn left, ” Bowie said. “As a 7-year-old brain would work, it just made a lot of sense.”

This small decision turned into a huge obsession for Bowie, who took this newly found sport and literally ran with it.

Coach Bowie played the game every August from that time on. He played all the way to the collegiate level, a quarterback-turned-receiver at Dickinson College.

After graduation, Bowie was faced with the common young insecurity.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Bowie said.

Fortunately for him, he got a call from Gilman School, his alma mater. The principal offered him a job to be a 4th grade math teacher.

He took the job, ecstatic to be a teacher and asked his former football coach, Biff Poggi, if there was any way he could coach as well. Poggi decided to bring him on the coaching staff.

“My first year in the classroom, I got through the entire curriculum in the first four months,” Bowie said. Although his students were getting great grades throughout this time, Bowie said, “This was a colossal mistake.”

This mistake was his first lesson in the classroom but also on the football field. 

“Skipping through the shallow level of understanding instead of teaching the depth of true rich learning is not beneficial,” Bowie said. “Football is just like teaching fourth-grade math, just in football curriculum just changes.”

Realizations like this caused his success at Gilman then Saint Francis Academy, where he got his first college coaching experience at West Virginia University. In Virginia, he learned from then Head Coach Dana Holgorsen about the air raid-style offense.

Holgersen, being a direct fruit from the coaching tree of Mike Leach, who created this offense, was pivotal in Bowie’s understanding.

“I will always be appreciative of him,” Bowie said. “He introduced and built a staff around me that deeply explained the air raid style. I learned a ton – you just don’t know what you don’t know.”

Bowie poses for a photo on Anthony Field at Wildcat Stadium. (Photo by Zion Webb)

Now Bowie, in his first season as ACU’s coordinator, said, “I love it here. I think this place is special, the ACU difference is a real thing.”

In this short stint coaching the Wildcats, he is taking everything he learned from his past and applying it to the current for this team. The air raid style offense has the ACU offense performing tops in the FCS, as well as holding their own in Power 5 play. 

To start the season the Wildcats put up 51 points on the Texas Tech raid raiders, an explosion for Quarterback Maverick McIvor, as he threw for over 500 yards and three touchdowns in this game. This came about due to his unique gift of simplifying the game for his athletes between the hash marks.

“He means everything to this team” McIvor said. “He prepares us really well, he teaches very well, he instills confidence in us every day, and he loves us. It’s been a light and day difference.”

That’s night-and-day difference in Maverick’s career, who is already four games into the season and has thrown for over 13oo yards, 9 touchdowns and a 144.4 passer rating.

Keith Patterson, the Wildcats head football coach, attributed that to Bowie’s impact.

“He is just really a great teacher of the game.” 

For Bowie, the system is like building a curriculum. It’s preaching with confidence and conviction. 

“This style is run all over, even at the high school level,” Bowie said. “It’s just like steak – everyone seasons their own differently. Mine is focused on personnel, spreading the football to places they succeed.”

Believing in his players has created multiple standout games for his team:

• Isaiah Johnson – three rushing TD vs. TTU
• Blayne Taylor – 141 receiving yards and one TD vs. TTU
• Nehemiah Martinez – 132 receiving yards and one TD vs. UWG

After a long journey that began with a step to the left, Bowie remains humble, attributing none of the Wildcats’ success – or that of his previous teams – to his own abilities.

 “I haven’t caught a single pass, haven’t thrown a single ball, haven’t blocked a single defensive lineman,” said Bowie. “It’s about the players on the field.”