Ricky Bowers increasing state title haul after leaving MBA to start Ensworth earns lifetime achievement award
The gold balls sparkled on the field.
One basketball trophy next to one football trophy next to another basketball trophy and so on were placed on Ensworth's football field for a photo shoot recently.
Nine gold balls were lined up in total — five were boys basketball trophies and four were football. There was one common denominator.
Ricky Bowers was the head coach of each team.
"It always made sense to me to do both (sports)," Bowers said. "Your best athletes in independent schools are generally multisport, or should be.
"It was a natural transition. Educationally, I was able to experience what they were feeling at both ends. The key to being able to do it was to have great assistants. I've always had great assistants from the very beginning in both sports. They were really running the show."
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Bowers, 62, is the recipient of the 2023 Fred Russell Lifetime Achievement Award, an award given annually by The Tennessean to a high school sports icon who has left a significant impact on athletics.
It comes at a time when Bowers' role at Ensworth has become much more administrative. He's the associate head of school as well as the athletic director. However on this day, when a sudden rain shower moved the photo shoot inside, Bowers beams with excitement when he begins talking about a coaching role he's accepted for at least the month of June.
"I really miss being with the kids and I really miss the teaching part," Bowers said. "There are probably things that are more meaningful than seeing kids grow and develop in something that they love, but I don't know what those are. I don't know if there is anything better than that.
"I miss that piece, which is in part why I'm coaching freshmen right now."
Bowers is a Nashville native. He was a three-sport athlete as a student at Montgomery Bell Academy and was named All-City in football, basketball and baseball. He played football for Tommy Owen and basketball for Johnny Bennett, and Jim Jefferson coached him in baseball. Bowers later won three football state titles (1998-2000) at MBA and three basketball championships (1998, 2000, 2001) before leaving for Ensworth a year later.
He also coached basketball at Brentwood Academy and was a football assistant under Carlton Flatt prior to going to MBA.
For those keeping track, that's eight combined basketball state championships at MBA and Ensworth and seven combined football titles for 15 state championships as head coach.
Bowers has 731 total wins as a football and basketball coach. He has a 192-47 football record and 539-205 basketball record.
Golden touch
Bowers attended David Lipscomb University, where he was a point guard for legendary men's basketball coach Don Meyer from 1980-84. It was while playing for Meyer that Bowers received his first taste of coaching when he'd help coach campers at Meyer's summer basketball camps.
Bowers left MBA to help start Ensworth in 2002. Ensworth didn't begin its football program until 2005 and it didn't begin playing full varsity seasons until 2007. The basketball program first tipped off a season earlier during the 2006-07 school year.
Bowers was the school's inaugural football and boys basketball coach. He won five straight TSSAA state basketball championships in Division II-AA from 2009-14 and was runner-up in 2017. His football team won DII-AA state titles from 2010-13 and was runner-up in 2014.
"It would be hard to have envisioned this," Bowers said. "I was asked the question at the first meeting how long it would take to have a football program that is competitive in this league. I said five years. We did it in four."
Bowers resigned as football coach prior to the 2018 season and as basketball coach prior to the 2021-22 season
Bowers still remembers those early seasons.
"I keep thinking back to the very first class of kids when there were 82 kids in the school and 31 boys try out for football," Bowers said. "About half of them — they never played football before. That was interesting.
"One of them (Kevin McDermott) ended up as a long snapper in the NFL."
Bowers' secret to success is no secret.
"It's having really good kids and really good coaches," Bowers said. "It's the same at all levels. You have the really good players and the really good coaches."
He won in all sports by demanding the most out of his players, but doing it in away athletes would oblige.
"He got the most out of his players," said CPA football coach Ingle Martin, who played football and basketball for Bowers at MBA. "You felt like you were going to be in position to be successful as a player. You also knew there was a certain level of effort and intensity that was needed on every single play.
"He would not accept anything less but your best effort. What that did was really truly created a group, if it was football or basketball, that were all trying to play as hard as they could. He never made it about one person. It was always about the team and working together and doing things as a group."
Martin also coached with Bowers for one year at Ensworth before taking over at CPA.
"He has a gift for keeping it simple and understanding if you have one person that can go," Martin said. "Whether that is Corn Elder or whoever, you let him go out and play. You give him the ball. In basketball he did that with Corn and in football he did that with Corn the year I was there coaching with him."
Reach Tom Kreager at 615-259-8089 or tkreager@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Kreager.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Ricky Bowers receives Fred Russell Lifetime Achievement Award
