One night in the summer of 1999, Kyle Gowen was packed and ready to leave for his first day of practice with the SMU football team. Instead of resting for a day of travel, Gowen was up all night.
After several hours thinking about leaving for school, the multi-record setting, all-state running back from Memphis, Tenn., came to the conclusion that he was simply tired of playing football and didn’t want to play in college. Hours before Gowen was supposed to start his new life, he went to talk to his mom and told her, “Mom, I can’t do this.”
“I was getting burned out in high school football, and I think it would have just gotten worse in college,” Gowen said. “College football is like a year-round full-time job.”
Gowen was more than qualified to play college ball. Despite only being able to play in six games his senior year due to an ankle injury, Gowen holds the most career rushing records at his high school, Memphis University School, which has been open since 1892.
Both Gowen’s high school running back coaches, Barry Ray and head coach Bobby Alston, said Gowen was one of the most naturally talented running backs they’ve seen.
“Kyle had great speed and quickness, and the best eyes I’ve seen,” Ray said. “He could have played at almost any level and been a good player.”
Numerous universities were interested in having Gowen play for them.
“I got letters from about every college in the country,” Gowen said. “I don’t know if they were seriously looking at me or just saw my name in a football magazine, but I would literally get an average of three letters every day and up to a lot more than that.”
High school teammate and junior history major Robert Richards said he was in awe of how many letters Gowen received.
“I used to go inside his house, and his dining room table was just covered in letters,” Richards said. “There would be a whole stack from Tennessee with a rubber band around it and then a stack from Ole Miss. I just quit counting the schools because there were so many.”
Gowen’s mom used to tell him that if God gave him the talent to play football, he should use it.
He only would have used that talent in college if he had been accepted into Harvard. Even then, Gowen said, he would have been played only as a ticket to attend a highly regarded academic school. He was put on a waiting list at Harvard.
Gowen even turned down a chance to play at his father’s alma mater, Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis), where Paul “Skeeter” Gowen made a name for his family in football and set several rushing records. Throughout high school, Gowen wore his dad’s jersey number, 20, to honor Skeeter, who died of a heart attack in 1987 and never saw his son play.
College teams’ interest in Gowen may have come not only from his records and statistics, but also from his track record of playing well against players who’ve made a strong name for themselves in college football. In one of his favorite high school games, Gowen played opposite 2000 Outland Trophy winner and defensive lineman John Henderson, whom the Jacksonville Jaguars picked ninth in the first round of the 2002 NFL draft.
Also on Henderson’s team were Santonio Beard, a running back for the University of Alabama, and Buck Fitzgerald, a defensive back for the University of Tennessee.
“I think I ran for 185 yards and two touchdowns that game,” Gowen said.
Gowen said that the most memorable part of the game, though, was on a fourth-down play near the end of the fourth quarter when Gowen’s team was down by five.
“We were at the 2-yard line, and the coach called a play that went straight at [Henderson],” Gowen said. ” I don’t know if the guys who were supposed to block him got scared off, or if he just threw them out of the way, but he picked me up and body-slammed me right on my face. My helmet cracked my nose.”
That type of fearless playing is characteristic of Gowen, Richards said.
“He’s the type of player who would rather lower his shoulder and trade paint than step out of bounds,” he said.
But even after his successes, Gowen maintains that he played high school football just for fun and liked the camaraderie of the sport more than anything. He remains humble.
“I don’t think I really knew how good I was, but I think other people knew it,” he said. “Those people gave me a lot of heat when they found out I wasn’t playing in college.”
Ray agrees. “Kyle’s choice of not playing was a disappointment to me – he could have been a very good college player.”
With all of the encouragement and pressure Gowen had to play college football, no wonder that night in 1999 was sleepless. Still, Gowen said he has no regrets.
“I don’t think I ever will [regret not playing],” he said. “But I guess maybe in 50 years when I’m in the rocking chair, I might wonder ‘what if’ and wonder if I would have been good or not.”
Avoiding regret is easier because all the people who encouraged him to play in college now support his decision, Gowen said.
Alston is one of these people.
“While it would have been fun to watch him play on Saturdays,” Alston said, “everyone must pursue his own dreams, and I certainly respect Kyle’s decision concerning college football.”
For now, Gowen, a junior international studies major, said he is getting all he can out of the college experience.
“College is a time to discover yourself, find new interests, meet people, travel,” he said. “If you play football, you can’t do any of these things. Football is a sport in high school, but it’s a lifestyle in college. I like the sport, not the lifestyle.”
