Former Serra Catholic athletic director Bill Cleary thought so much of Rich Bowen that he hired him to be the school’s football coach twice.
“I would have hired him a third time,” Cleary said. “He revitalized the program twice.”
Bowen may have had two go-rounds on the sideline of his alma mater, but the Eagles sideline on Hershey Drive was only the first stop of an illustrious 28-year coaching career that saw him build several area programs up from the rubble into playoff contenders and champions. Bowen died Tuesday at 60 after a short bout with colon cancer.
“I was very close with him and what a great guy. And what a football guy,” Hempfield football coach Nick Keefer said., “He’s just a football guy through and through. He just loved football and loved teaching it. I’m very appreciative of my relationship with him and how much he taught me.”
Bowen grew up with the game. His father, Dick, who passed away last fall, was a longtime coach at Serra Catholic and coached Rich in high school. As a senior, he led the Eagles to a 12-0 victory against rival Clairton in the 1981 WPIAL Class 1A championship game to bring home the school’s first championship.
“Having him as a student and coaching him, he was just an incredible young man,” Cleary said. “He got along with everybody, he was friendly, and he was very, very coachable. He was just one of those guys you always enjoyed being around.”
Bowen remains the most distinguished male athlete in the school’s 63-year history. As a senior, he was a Post-Gazette Fab 22 selection, a Parade All-American, and committed to follow in his father’s footsteps to play at Pitt on a team that featured another quarterback from a local parochial school in Central Catholic alum, Dan Marino.
Before the next school year began, the school’s trophy case was filled with memorabilia from his time with the program and remains there to this day.
“Preserving the history of all the things he accomplished as an athlete and all the teams he played on was very important to us,” Cleary said. “He was a Parade All-American and from a Class A Catholic high school that really was a big deal, and he deserved it. Watching him play football every week was a joy to watch.”
Bowen left Pitt and transferred to Youngstown State. He also switched positions and became a tight end. However, shortly after graduating from Youngstown State, he returned to his roots and became the head coach at Serra Catholic.
That was only the first stop on his coaching journey. After he left Serra Catholic, he moved on and built up the program at Elizabeth Forward from doormat to the WPIAL Class 3A semifinals in 1999. He then headed to Yough for a few seasons that included a 7-3 campaign in 2004
His best year, though, came after he returned to Serra Catholic. He became the rare person who both quarterbacked and coached the same school to a WPIAL title when he led the Eagles to a 15-1 record, the school’s second WPIAL Class 1A title and first since he was a player and its first state finals appearance.
An innovator, he had the Eagles running four-wide sets and shotgun snaps well before they became standard practice at the high school level.
“We were running a spread offense long before anybody else was using it,” Cleary said. “That was revolutionary. I know people in our conference, they had problems defending that. They never saw it before.”
After a two-year hitch as an assistant at Waynesburg University, he rejoined the WPIAL and took over as head football coach and assistant athletic director at Hempfield, where he was stationed from 2012-20.
“I first got to know him when I was a coach at Greensburg Central Catholic, and my son Logan played for him in 2012, 13, and 14, so I got to know him as a parent and as a coach,” said Hempfield basketball coach Bill Swan. “I think that — and I’m going to get emotional — was just so selfless. Rich was just such a good guy. He wasn’t just a coach or assistant AD. He was a fan of all the kids.”
He was also a student of the game.
“He collected football books,” Keefer said. “He had all kinds of old football books with different kinds of offenses and was such a brilliant offensive mind. He taught me how to look at a defense, see what they were trying to take away and how you find that advantage and exploit them.”
Unlike his father, Bowen didn’t get to coach his sons Sean and Aaron in high school.
Instead, he coached against them.
“I used to say to him, ‘What’s it like to draw up a defense to sack the quarterback at Norwin when it’s your son Sean?’ Swan said. “He loved his three kids so much, and he talked about them all the time, and it always puzzled me how you could coach against your kid on a Friday night, but he handled that the way you think he would.”
After Bowen left Hempfield, he worked as an assistant at Norwin and was with Greensburg Salem during the summer. He was out at 7-on-7 drills despite having lost nearly 100 pounds in less than a year.
Even so, his legacy as a coach and a person will last longer than the trophies still sitting behind the glass in the Serra Catholic hallway.
“It was such a rough day because when I got the word that he passed, I was just devastated and shocked,” Cleary said. “I guess I was shocked that it took a turn for the worse, and it went pretty fast.”
Bowen is survived by his mother, Jane; his wife, Denise; his three children, Sean, Aaron and Brittany; and one grandchild.
First Published: October 9, 2024, 10:28 p.m.
Updated: October 10, 2024, 2:00 a.m.
