LB Bowman follows 'first instinct'

Jeff Rice

How is he always there?

How does Navorro Bowman find his way to the football on almost every play?

How did he make 165 tackles in 14 games during his last full season of high school football, for a big-school state championship team?

How does he have 20 more tackles (52) than any of his Penn State teammates this season despite coming off the bench for the first three games?

“I just always go to my first instinct and never second-guess myself,” the sophomore outside linebacker says. “If you make a mistake, you’ve just got to keep playing. Football is about taking gambles and taking chances. I took a lot of them, and most of the time I was right.

“Most people second-guess themselves; I just take my first instinct and go with it.”

The crazy part? Bowman’s first instinct was to stay off the football field.

Bowman grew up in Forestville, Md., where he was a frequent participant of football games at the local Boys and Girls Club. His opponents and teammates were usually older, many of them friends of his elder brother, Travis. But when his freshman year at Suitland High School rolled around, Bowman wasn’t there for the start of football practices. Basketball was his thing.

“I just didn’t really feel it,” he says.

One of Bowman’s basketball coaches convinced him to watch one of the practices, which reeled him in a bit. Still a little leery, he joined the team for a junior varsity scrimmage.

Bowman ran past people, jumped over people, dragged down quarterbacks and tailbacks. No one could keep him out of the end zone.

“I told our JV coaches,” recalls Suitland football coach Nick Lynch, “‘No way that kid’s going to stay on JV.’”

Lynch, who had coached at Suitland for more than a decade, had never put a freshman on the varsity team. Not even Lamont Jordan, who went on to star at running back for the University of Maryland and now plays for the New England Patriots. He was ready to do just that with Bowman.

But Bowman still needed a push. Travis, a wide receiver and kick returner for the Rams, gave it to him.

“I really just listened to him, took his word and took a chance,” Bowman says. “And it’s turning out pretty good.”

For most of his career at Suitland, Bowman was able to balance football and basketball. He played guard for one of the nation’s top AAU teams, the D.C. Assault, and had feelers from Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Wake Forest and North Carolina. It’s hard for Bowman to watch a major-college basketball game today and not see someone he played with or against on one court or another.

But he began to realize his future was in football. During the summers, Lynch would leave a sign-in sheet for his players in the school weight room, conducting workouts on the honor system. Bowman would be there every day, even on days when his AAU team practiced. He went from one sport to the other the same way he went from blockers to the ball carrier.

“He knows one speed,” Lynch says, chuckling. “And that’s it.”

During Bowman’s junior year, in 2004, the Rams won their first Class 4A state title. Their star linebacker added 12 sacks to those 165 tackles, ran for 1,226 yards as a running back and was named Maryland’s Defensive Player of the Year. The Rams were 13-1, their only loss coming in the final game of the regular season to Eleanor Roosevelt and Bowman’s future Penn State teammate, Derrick Williams.

The following season, Bowman separated his shoulder in Suitland’s first game of the year. He tried to come back a few weeks later only to have his shoulder pop out again. The Rams needed a win on the last day of the season to return to the playoffs. The coaches wouldn’t let Bowman play as a running back, trying to prevent further injury, but he made more than a dozen tackles at linebacker to help his team to the win.

“He willed our team into the playoffs,” Lynch says. “He played one unbelievable game with one shoulder, one arm.”

Bowman had used the extra down time that fall to help him graduate in three and a half years. He committed to Penn State in December, joining six other players from Maryland, and enrolled in classes in January. The shoulder injury curtailed the work he could do as a freshman, however, so he redshirted the 2006 season.

Last fall, the 6-foot-1, 228-pound Bowman wasted little time displaying his instincts and speed. He blocked a punt in the season opener against Florida International and made 16 tackles as the top reserve to Tyrell Sales at weakside linebacker despite missing a pair of games with a sprained ankle.

In mid-November, Bowman and then-teammate Chris Baker were charged with felony aggravated assault after an on-campus fight. The aggravated assault charges were thrown out, then refiled. Bowman, along with former teammate Phil Taylor, eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct and was sentenced to a year’s probation in May.

Bowman, who did not travel with the Nittany Lions to the regular-season finale at Michigan State and did not play in the Alamo Bowl, was suspended from the team from late January until the preseason. He was able to stay in shape during the spring by working out with Chris Johnson, Penn State’s track and field associate head coach.

“It really motivated me a little bit more just to work a little bit harder,” Bowman says. “Not knowing what the team was doing, I was just trying to do a little bit of extra to make sure I wouldn’t lose a step when I got back with the team.”

Bowman had been itching to prove himself on the field since he came to Penn State. His off-field troubles gave him something else to prove.

“I learned from it,” he says. “People got their own mindset about me. I’m just trying to get my real image back, and really show the people I’m not the type of person people thought I was when that incident was going on.”

But this June, the season became less about having something to prove and more about what to play for. Bowman’s father, Hillard, died from complications from a blood clot at the age of 52. Bowman, the youngest of Hillard’s three sons, has a different sort of motivation each time he steps on the field.

“It’s really just all dedicated to him,” he says.

Hillard Bowman worked for 30 years as an electrician for the Potomac Electric Power Company. He loved drag-car racing, but once Navorro joined the team at Penn State, he sold his race car and trailer so he could purchase an RV and travel to each of his son’s games.

Bowman says his father didn’t know a lot about football — he was more of a basketball guy — but would call him every day after practice to find out what the Nittany Lions, his son in particular, were doing. Bowman still hears that voice, still lets his dad know what’s going on.

“I still talk to him before the games,” Bowman said, “still think about him every single day.”

Bowman has leaned on his roommate, Penn State defensive end Aaron Maybin, who lost his mother as a young child and was close with Hillard as well.

“When I get down at times, he’s always there to keep me focused and know that everything’s gonna be OK,” Bowman says.

Bowman’s trying to play the same role for his family. His main concern is “trying to keep a smile” on the face of his mother, Johnnie. Not far behind is trying to set a good example for his 16-year-old nephew, Lorenzo, who is suiting up for Lynch at Bowman’s alma mater this fall.

Football has been Bowman’s joy, his way of making amends for his off-field mistakes and his tribute to his father. He is having a tremendous season, recording at least five solo tackles in each of the last four games while playing at a speed that leaves no time for second-guessing.

“Some things you just don’t teach,” Lynch says. “Some of the instincts Navorro has are just unbelievable.”