Back to Work as a Postman : Northridge Center Bowser Returns From Layoff With New Confidence

When Cal State Northridge invades enemy territory, fans in Boulder, Colo., Las Cruces, N. M., and Missoula, Mont., don’t run for cover.

There is nothing to fear.

The Matadors are almost harmless looking. They are scrawny and relatively short and none of them walk with a cocky stride. They aren’t intimidating and they don’t have an easily identifiable star who could make things rough on the home team.

But one Northridge player stands out amid the 6-foot-5, 180-pound set. He is difficult to miss and even more difficult to dismiss.

Fans do a double-take, then can’t take their eyes off Todd Bowser. He is always the Northridge player they discuss as they settle in before tip-off.

When they finally get over the girth of Bowser, CSUN’s 6-7, 300-pound center, the discussion turns to his visage. Not only is he the heaviest college basketball player many have seen, he also appears to be the oldest.

How old? About 40, according to fans from Pocatello, Ida., to Fort Collins, Colo.

Although the 22-year-old senior also appears mild-mannered, no one will let Bowser get away with it.

He is a marked man. Someone to insult. Someone who will entertain fans while also providing material for clever nicknames and comedic chants.

“They are ruthless,” said Bowser, who seems to have a deaf ear and a sense of humor.

“I expect it,” he said. “Actually, it is kind of funny.”

But Bowser’s basketball career is no laughing matter, particularly in the fall of 1989 when he wrestled with it and lost.

Todd Bowser completed his third season with the Northridge basketball program in 1989 discouraged and defeated.

“I didn’t have confidence and no one had confidence in me,” he recalled. “I was really down on myself.”

In time, Coach Pete Cassidy was down on Bowser too. When drills began for the 1989-90 season Bowser was not ready.

“You can’t tell if there are 10 or 15 (extra) pounds on him, but when it slides up to 300 you could tell by the way he was moving that he was overweight,” Cassidy said.

“It shows a lack of commitment. His weight going up brought that to the surface. What was eating at him that allowed him to get out of shape?”

Bowser’s lack of confidence, combined with the demands of practice and schoolwork, proved to be too much. He quit the team.

But he didn’t quit on his teammates. An avid supporter of CSUN athletics, he attended several games last season.

He realized how much he missed basketball and also felt the need to complete what he had started. Which is why he returned to the team last September.

A week into conditioning drills, Bowser feared that he had made a mistake. He couldn’t run for lengthy stretches of time, he was too heavy, and the new fast-paced offense was too much for him.

“I was concerned,” Cassidy said, “knowing Todd’s work ethic, that he’d try to get in shape all at one time, which he did. So unlike me, I said ‘go easy.’

“It wasn’t necessary for him to be in great shape Oct. 15, as long as he was in good enough shape for the first game.

“It’s hard to come back after a long layoff. If things don’t go well depression sets in. But in the back of my mind I have a lot of confidence in Todd’s mental toughness.”

Cassidy’s approach paid off. By the time Bowser took the court against Colorado on Nov. 23 he was in shape. He didn’t look it, of course, but he could run.

“He is probably in better shape than a lot of centers,” Cassidy said.

With the physical doubts out of the way, the mental ones crept in.

In his year off, Bowser discovered that it was much easier to study and go home to his wife Francine than to stick around for practice. And then there were CSUN’s upcoming trips to Colorado, Montana, Utah and Idaho.

Moreover, while Bowser was bundled up on bus rides over snow-covered mountain passes, he was missing classes.

“I was telling (Cassidy) the other day,” Bowser said. “It is a lot different than before. A lot harder with the travel and the style of play.”

It would have been easy for Bowser to quit--he had done it before, but he was determined to stick it out.

“There’s no question I’m playing better,” Bowser said. “I got my confidence back. Now, I’m nothing but positive.

Statistics mean little to Bowser, but his fourth year has meant a lot to his place in CSUN basketball history.

He is third in Northridge career free-throw attempts and fourth in free throws made. He is the school’s sixth-leading rebounder.

With 16 games left, at his pace of 5.7 rebounds a game, Bowser could become CSUN’s third-leading rebounder with more than 630.

Although he is currently 11th in career scoring, he is on pace at 9.6 points per game to become CSUN’s sixth-leading career scorer with more than 1,054 points.

Not what one might expect from a guy who looks more like a bar bouncer.

“It doesn’t matter what he looks like,” Cassidy said. “He is agile, coordinated and mobile for his girth. He’s hard to get around. And he has an effective jump hook and a step-through move.

“It is hard to deny him the ball because he is so active. He’s a big body to fight the whole game.”

Bowser was equally tenacious in the trenches at Montclair Prep, but he chose basketball at CSUN instead of accepting a Division I football offer. His reasons were twofold: He preferred basketball and he believed there was less chance of injury.

“At the time I was so banged up,” Bowser said. “I had a dislocated shoulder and two sprained ankles. I decided to save my body and play the less-physical game, but as it turned out, it is not less physical.”

Not the way Bowser plays it. He leans on taller men, boxing them out with ferocity, and clutching rebounds with the sure hands of a tight end. No foe ventures into the key without getting muscled by Bowser.

“Once you’re sealed by Todd Bowser it is like Saran Wrap,” teammate Kirk Scott said.

Unfortunately for CSUN, when the going gets really rough, the officials often blame Bowser.

“He gets beat up and they don’t call it,” Cassidy said. “Just because he’s so big it is not supposed to hurt him. That is nonsense.”

A case in point--the corneal abrasion Bowser suffered when an Idaho State player poked him in the eye. It didn’t elicit a whistle, but there was a penalty--an 18-hour sentence behind an eye patch.

At least the big man had someone to console him, albeit by telephone.

“She’s there for me when I need someone to talk to and I can’t talk to (the team),” Bowser said of his wife, the former Francine Bowman, who played volleyball at CSUN.

Bowser, the team’s only married man, was wed last July.

“It’s a lot being married, going to school and playing on the team,” he said.

“The worst part is the road trips; she doesn’t like them. The finances are OK, though. We just moved into a house.”

Francine plans to work until May when Todd finishes his degree, then she will return to school.

He plans to teach and coach at the high school level, then move on to the college coaching ranks.

No doubt opposing fans will have a field day heckling Coach Bowser, but he can take it--he has been through worse on his journey back to basketball.