Kotys Family Album

 Springs' Fowler Has Key In Raising a 'Coach's Son’

By Nick Kotys

Reprinted from Dolphin Digest October 6, 1974

For the first time I am envious of another football coach among Dade County's high schools.

Leo Fowler at Miami Springs is experiencing something now that myself and every coach in Miami would like to have. Fowler is coaching his son and young Jim Fowler is not just any football player. He's one of the best in the city-if not the state-and the colleges are already standing in line trying to recruit him.

    Can you imagine what kind of thrill it is for a person who devotes his life to developing youngsters into football players to have your son come along and be among the very best?

    There's no question but that the greatest thrill in my life would have been for my son Billy to have been a great football player. Billy was not a good athlete.      He was a third-string quarterback for me in 1960, a year that I had Bruce Fischer, one of the best quarterbacks ever at Gables.

    But Billy, who was just 5-7, 145, and not fast enough to play any other position, played because he wanted to. Even though the pressure didn't come from me or his mother, perhaps it was there because he was a coach's son. I remember how exhausted he would be at home in between those two-a-day practices in August and his mother would ask him, "Billy, you know you don't have to play football?" and he would say, "Mom, how would it look if the coach's son quit the team? Besides, I want to be out there."

Because Billy wasn't a good football player and stuck it out it made me very proud of him.

Leo Fowler has raised his son in a very unique manner, and one that I strongly recommend. I talked with Leo recently at Springs High. We stood underneath the shade of a big tree on his practice field at Springs and traded stories about our sons just like any other proud fathers. 

"One of the things I've done right," Leo kidded me, "was that I've just left Jimbo alone. I've never asked him to play football or go out for any sport.

In fact, I didn't even let him play pee-wee football in Muskogee. Any football that he picked up was at the dinner table. He just got in with a bunch of other kids who liked football and started playing on his own." 

Leo played on Bud Wilkinson's 1955 Oklahoma team and later became head coach and.athletic director at Muskogee, a high school powerhouse, year in and year out in Oklahoma. He thought he wanted to get out of coaching so. Johnny Sain, an old teammate at Oklahoma, was able to lure him to Miami as the school's athletic business manager. Sain, of course, than talked Leo into helping on the staff at Srpings and when Sain left to go back to Oklahoma, Fowler got the head job. He finished 8-2 last year and is loaded again this year. 

Leo also has an older son who wasn't as gifted for football as Jim since he weighed only 145. But he found a great outlet in wrestling and now wrestles at that weight at Oklahoma, last year's NCAA champion. College wrestling at Oklahoma is nearly as big as football, believe it or not. 

Leo talked about Jim's early years and how formative they were. 

"Jimbo has always been big (he's 6-1, 205 now, an offensive guard) so he had early success in football. That helped a lot in his getting interested in it.” 

Leo made a move prior to last season-Jim’s junior year at springs- that showed his son's dedication. Jim had been a fullback but Leo needed help in the offensive line and had another fullback He had to choose between the two which one to move to guard and never carry the ball again. He asked Jim first. "Just as long as I play somewhere Dad, that's all that counts," Jim said.

Now "Jimbo" may be the best guard in Dade County.  He was first team All_City as a junior.

When Leo and I walked inside we ran into some of his staff, including Larry Beckman, Leo's offensive line coach. I'm kidding, of course, but Beckman's got the toughest job in town: the head coach's son at one guard and the principal's son at center (Mike Bromir).   `

"I just leave Larry alone," Leo said half in jest. "I don't want to mess up the good job he does." 

And Leo leaves the football conversation on the practice field.       "If Jimbo brings it up we'll talk football," Leo said.  "But he doesn't ask for much counseling. And I don't think Jimbo has to try to live up to his father as a football player. He's already a better player than I ever was." 

When I left Miami Springs I had the feeling that the Fowler's father-son relationship was one of the healthiest I'd ever seen. If only more parents-who aren't even football coaches-would just not pressure their sons into a kids football program everyone would be better off. 

I think I made one very serious error with my son Billy_ One that I hope no other parents make. I felt it would help him mature if he was in with some older boys at camp one summer when I was a counseler at Camp Chimney Rock in North Carolina. Billy was 11 and I put him in with the 12 year-olds.

Billy didn't have the confidence the other kids had. I may have broken his confidence in athletics that summer. 

But I was always proud of Billy. It was tougher on him because he wasn't a good football player. Once every week he made me proudest. We'd always need a reserve quarterback to run the other team's plays against our first-team defense. As you can imagine, that quarterback usually takes some real physical punishment. Once a week I'd say "OK, give me a quarterback over here," and I'd see every reserve quarterback we had turn his head and try to stand behind a big tackle. Every week, without fail, I’d hear, “I’ll take it, Dad.” 

Those experiences are paying off for Billy now.  He went to Emory University and had never played soccer before but made the soccer team.  He got his master degree at Florida.  He and his wife and two daughters (check this) live in Columbus, Ohio where Billy is with a pharmaceutical company selling to hospitals.  I talked to him just the other day and he said, “Dad, I’m going to bet a pretty good bonus this year, $15,000.” 

I’m very proud of Billy.  I can imagine how Leo Fowler must feel.  

Nick Kotys is Coral Gables High School athletic director who retired from coaching football at Gables with a 163-34-9 record and six state championships.