BIG WEST TOURNAMENT : In Trying Year, Bowen Shines

FULLERTON —  He had told himself, promised himself, that this would not happen.

Ever since he had received word that his adopted grandmother had passed away, Bruce Bowen, Cal State Fullerton’s leading scorer, had vowed that he would overcome it. But here, during a late February stretch in the Titan season, his world was collapsing in the one place he never thought it would: on the basketball court.

Bowen, who ranks 10th on Fullerton’s all-time scoring list and sixth on the school’s all-time rebounding chart, managed only five points that Saturday against UC Santa Barbara and had only nine the following Thursday during a crucial loss at Pacific.

Her name was Victoria Thrash, and she was his pastor.

If Bowen had the right words, maybe now he could tell you how he fell into a slump three weeks ago that he has only recently shaken, busting out with 18 points in a stunning victory over Nevada Las Vegas on Saturday.

If Bowen knew the right answers, maybe he would tell you that he is completely over everything, and that everything will be OK when he joins his Fullerton teammates against Cal State Long Beach in an opening round game of the Big West Conference tournament at 9 p.m. Friday.

But for him to describe the pain of the past year, well, it might be easier to reach out and touch the face of God.

Since last summer, Bowen, a quiet type with a fervent faith, has had to face the suicide of his cousin (August), the suicide of his best friend back home in Fresno (October) and the death of Thrash, a surrogate grandmother.

“I have not seen a college student-athlete, let alone a college student, go through what he has gone through,” Fullerton Coach Brad Holland said. “He has kept a positive frame of mind and has worked hard. He has not felt sorry for himself.”

Lord knows, he could have been excused. He suffered a bruised nose and knots on his head when a UC Irvine player started a brawl in January. In February, he suffered a stress fracture in his right foot and has played in pain ever since.

Senior year in college is supposed to be about friends and parties and bright futures.

Sure, Bowen passed the 1,000-point career scoring mark at Fullerton this season, but, three days before Long Beach played at Fullerton on Feb. 18, he was standing at his third funeral in seven months.

“It was such a shock,” Bowen said. “It is still hard for me to believe at times. It’s different when someone close to you passes. It’s unexplainable. Only you know how you and their relationship was.

“It hurts deeply. It’s like she’s not gone, but she is.”

He met her at the Christ Centered Apostolic Church in Inglewood. Two years later, he was calling her “grandma” and had practically moved in with her son, Robert, his wife and their four children.

Bowen looked forward to the visits with Victoria at church. And he stayed late into the night, talking, at the home of Robert Thrash, whom Bowen had begun to refer to as his “uncle.”

Then they would grab something to eat and then talk some more, covering everything. Religion. Family. Basketball. The hour would get late. Bowen would crash on the floor.

The night an Irvine player treated Bowen’s head like a football, Robert Thrash IV, 13, saw the highlights on television and was so upset he devised a plan as he waited for Bowen to come home.

“Take my bed,” he told Bowen. “You’re not sleeping on the floor tonight. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Victoria Thrash also saw the televised fight highlights. While reporters wanted to know if Bowen planned to press charges, he was thinking of something else.

“What really got under her skin was the UC Irvine incident,” Bowen said. “She kept talking to me about that, saying, ‘You can’t let that get to you. We can’t control that. All we can do is pray for them.’ ”

So they did, and Bowen thought he had made it through the worst of everything. Then, Victoria Thrash went into the hospital on Monday, Feb. 15, with chest pains. She thought it was the spicy chicken she had eaten during her 68th birthday party the day before. It turned out to be a massive heart attack.

She never came back.

Less than two weeks later, Bowen left his apartment in Fullerton for good, moving in with the Thrash family. They had been there for him. Now was his chance to return the favor--especially with regard to Robert.

“By my going through the passing (of his cousin and friend), I was trying to convey things to him,” Bowen said. “I understand what he’s going through.”

Maybe their blood isn’t the same and maybe their family history does not mesh, but their love certainly has. And to Bowen, all that really matters is that they are his, and he is theirs.

“The most wonderful thing to me is to eat dinner with them,” Bowen said. “In college, a lot of times, you don’t have a family atmosphere.”

On the court, Bowen’s teammates could tell he was hurting. The zest wasn’t there, and the numbers were down.

“Bruce keeps to himself,” said guard Don Leary, one of Bowen’s closest friends on the team. “He doesn’t share his problems with a lot of people. He feels he can deal with them on his own.

“But you could tell, it was bothering him. Before the Pacific game, he had it on his mind.”

Said Bowen: “Things tend to affect you when you don’t even realize they are. I’m trying to deal with things the best way I know how, and that’s to be prayerful.

“If anything, things affected me on the court. I tried to put it behind me, but I just wasn’t able to. It just affected me in that way.”

Despite his two-week funk, Bowen was named first-team All-Big West Conference on Wednesday. And he leads the Titans in scoring at 15.4 points per game, despite normally drawing the opponents’ best player on defense.

“In my opinion, he’s the best defender in the conference,” Holland said. “And he’s one of the best in the nation.”

He has seen, up close, Nevada Las Vegas’ J.R. Rider, Cal State Long Beach’s Lucious Harris, and UCLA’s Shon Tarver and Mitchell Butler, to name a few. And more than a few have left the court muttering.

“His faith in God has helped him a lot,” Holland said. “And he obviously possesses some personal character and mental toughness to be able to withstand all he has gone through.

“A lot of people would think, ‘Gosh, God and the world is against me,’ but I haven’t seen that in Bruce.”

Instead, in Saturday’s upset victory over UNLV, Bowen scored 18--his best game since Feb. 13, three days before the death of his adopted grandmother. That game should give Fullerton and Bowen a boost entering the Big West tournament.

“I felt real good,” said Bowen, his eyes lighting up. “I felt like my old self. I was really playing defense.

“Even though Rider scored 32, he missed 17 shots.”

That memory filed safely, and with another practice looming, he headed off toward his last few days as a Titan.

It’s tournament time, and Bowen has been around long enough to know that with a strong faith and a few breaks, the tomorrows may be better than the yesterdays.

Going Up

Titan career scoring leaders: 1. Leon Wood: 1,876 2. Richard Morton: 1,705 3. Greg Bunch: 1,498 4. Henry Turner: 1,329 5. Tony Neal: 1,327 6. Cedric Ceballos: 1,284 7. Keith Anderson: 1,240 8. Gary Davis: 1,165 9. Kevin Heenan: 1,163 10. Bruce Bowen: 1,151

Titan career rebounding leaders: 1. Tony Neal: 1,115 2. Greg Bunch: 785 3. Henry Turner: 630 4. Cedric Ceballos: 618 5. Agee Ward: 563 6. Bruce Bowen: 553 7. Mike Niles: 502 8. Calvin Roberts: 496 9. Ozell Jones: 479 10. Vincent Blow: 435