Okolona odyssey

Sporting News, The, April 10, 1995 by Terry Frei

Dolphins Coach Don Shula, Greene and other pro personnel men who weren't at the workout looked at a tape of the workout later. The tape was made by the Okolona High coaches and wasn't up to theater standards, but it was good enough for Greene to see what he wanted to see.

"He had on cutoff jeans, a T-shirt and what looked like combat boots," Greene says. "I found out later they were high-top tennis shoes. He just came out and ran. He didn't know how to lift, he didn't know how to run, he didn't know how to do what other guys do just to have `that look.' When I scout defensive linemen, it's unsettling to me to see guys 285, 290 pounds, with these tights on and these track shoes. They get down and do all that prancing around like an Olympic sprinter and get down and run a 5.2."

The NFL men asked Bowens if he wanted to warm up for a while. Bowens said no, thanks. He did a little stretching, that was all, and then began the workout. "It wasn't one of those workouts where everything was highly organized," Shula says wryly.

Bowens ran the 40. He went through the shuttle drills. His vertical jump was measured against a highly splintered light pole outside the gym. He lifted weights. All in all, it was the sort of unrefined workout and performance that apparently left scouts less than enamored with Bowens. The workout didn't turn off Braatz or Greene.

Braatz wrote up a glowing report on Bowens but kept it to himself for a while longer. Why? In the grapevine world of pro football, secrets - or evaluations outside the conventional wisdom - can leak outside your organization.

Bowens had a second workout in Okolona scheduled about a week later. Less than 20 NFL personnel men showed up, and the weather was so bad, everyone moved into the high school gym, where Bowens worked out as a P.E. class went on around him.

As the draft approached, Braatz and Tom Heckert, the Dolphins' director of player personnel, broached Bowens as a first-round possibility for the Dolphins. Don Shula's response was foreshadowing of what others would say on draft night.

"My initial reaction was, `You gotta be kidding. How can we be interested in him?'" Shula says. "He played nine games and bounced around and weighed 330 pounds. But the more you looked, the more you started to get sold on him. One of the games I remember was against Alabama, and he played a strong game. He did everything right. He made all the instinctive moves. Some guys always do that; some guys never do it. Some guys you can't teach it to."

Shula then sent defensive coordinator Tom Olivadotti to Okolona for another visit with Bowens. Olivadotti asked Bowens if his aversion to the classroom would create a problem, because pro football involves meetings that can be similar to Psychology 101 - or any other college course. No big deal, Bowens said. Football would be his job, and he would be a professional.

"Then it was up to me to make the decision," Shula says. "I just decided to go for it. We've been burned on decisions like that in the past, but you have to do what you feel is right. We thought that was the right thing to do."