Page 46 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2025 - Online Magazine
P. 46
“The Natural”
Richard Bowles, Jr.
by Jonathan Scott (nephew)
he pitcher squinted into the face—half pride, half disbelief.
late-spring sun. Richard Monterey High School took
TBowles adjusted his batter’s the state championship and at
helmet, shifted his weight, and 17, Richard’s star was rising
waited. The count was two balls, no quickly. He’d go on to play crowd, could barely get through
strikes, and the stands were electric. college ball, maybe even pro. When a class speech without sweating
When the bat cracked, the sound you’re young and gifted, the world is through his shirt. Maybe that’s why
split the air like a thunderclap, full of open doors. the stage fascinated him. He sang
and a white ball arced high into Elvis in talent shows, all swivel-hips,
forever. He’d hit the game-winning But life has its own way of coaching swagger, and sideburns. He was a
homer. For one shining moment you. natural on the stage pretending to be
in 1974, under the Austin sky, it The Making of a Natural someone bold.
seemed that fate, talent, and hope At Lubbock Christian College, he
lined up just for him. It’s the kind Richard grew up in Lubbock, the son played under Coach Larry Hays
of memory that remains vivid of a firefighter and a mother who and helped take the team to two
even as everything else fades. The could do a dozen things at once; NAIA World Series appearances.
way the dust rose. The feel of his she worked in the school cafeteria, The road trips were long, the buses
teammates’ hands slapping his ironed folks’ clothes for extra loud. Between games, guitars came
helmet. The look on his father’s income, and tended to four kids out, voices rose, and Richard found
spaced barely a year apart. The kids something new in those harmonies,
all played sports and rode horses a feeling not unlike hitting a perfect
at their grandfather’s ranch where line drive—only the rhythm came
they learned the small mercies of from the heart.
discipline and dirt.
LCC is also where he met Donna
Richard was quick, sure-handed, Scott. They married in 1979, two
and fierce about anything involving kids still half-in-love with baseball
a ball. His father, a man who and dreams, yet wholly in love with
believed in hard work more than each other. Around that same time,
luck, coached some of his teams. By faith took root in Richard’s life. His
high school, he was a star in both sophomore year, he found himself
football and baseball, an All-State convicted by the idea that talent
wide receiver, and later named to the wasn’t the same as purpose. He
All-Century South Plains team. accepted a different kind of calling,
Comfortable as he was with all that one that had less to do with glory
attention on the field, he had another and more to do with grace, and he
side: quieter, almost shy. The same committed his life to Christ.
boy who could take a pitch deep
into left field in front of a cheering
46 Lubbock Senior Link
