PLAINVIEW — Four-time college All-American women’s basketball player Rosemary Brown Bowser is among five Wayland Baptist University alumni scheduled to be inducted Nov. 4 into the Athletics Hall of Honor.
The induction ceremony, which is open to the public, takes place at 9 a.m. in Banquet Room 211 in McClung University Center on Wayland’s Planview campus.
Adaptability, as well as having fun, were the keys to Rosemary Brown Bowser’s successful basketball-playing career, helping make her a decorated four-time college All-American, and later, a successful high school coach and administrator.
Born in Talco east of Dallas, Bowser played post at Rivercrest High School. However, at 5-foot-9, she was moved to point-guard upon her arrival at Ranger College. After earning two Junior College All-American honors at Ranger, Bowser was recruited by coach Dean Weese to play for Wayland’s famed Flying Queens. Her role changed at Wayland as she became the Flying Queen’s floor general and specialized in defense.
Bowser’s 1974-1975 junior season saw the Flying Queens produce a 34-1 record, with their lone loss coming to Immaculata College in the National AIAW championship. Bowser and company won the Flying Queens’ seventh straight National Women’s Invitational Tournament in Amarillo and the last of the Flying Queens’ 10 AAU national championships. Bowser’s final season in 1975-1976 saw the Flying Queens finish 34-5. They won another NWIT crown by beating UCLA in the finals.
Bowser lost her final game as a Flying Queen by one point, 67-66, to National General West of California in the National AAU finals in Gallup, N.M. Bowser made the All-Tournament team, capping a career that also featured one NWIT and two AAU All-American honors. As a junior, Bowser helped the Queens establish a new team record for average points per game, 77.4, which they shattered the very next season at 83.2 points per game. They also broke single-game scoring records, highlighted by a 115-30 win over Texas A&I.
Bowser, a 1977 Wayland graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English and physical education, toured the U.S. and Russia as a member of national all-star teams. She was selected for the 1976 Olympic squad but suffered a severely sprained ankle during training camp. At age 22, Bowser started the girls’ basketball program at Amarillo High. She spent the next 15 years coaching before opting out in the early 1990s “because I didn’t want to coach my daughter.”
She earned her master’s degree in education from West Texas A&M, served as an assistant/associate principal at Palo Duro High School for 18 years and spent two years as assistant athletic director for Amarillo Independent School District prior to retiring in 2010. She now lives in Euless and works part-time for her son-in-law in Pinnacle Consulting Management Group, Inc., a company which provides right-of-way services. She is an elder at Dayspring Family Church in Irving.
Bowser and husband Mark have four children – former Texas Tech Lady Raider Casey (Jackson) Boyd; an adopted daughter, Dannissa Pugh; and stepdaughters Ronisha Norwood and Amanda Bowser – and six grandchildren.
Also on the induction docket are men’s basketball standout Alexey Carvalho, wrestling program shaper and first head coach Johnny Cobb, baseball great Brett Cook and record-setting golfer Andrew Williamson.
source: Teresa Young, WBU News and Marketing, 20 October, 2023