
Carl Bowser
coachInducted February 15th, 1996
Over the years, nobody has been more closely associated with Bakersfield College football than Carl Bowser, starting with his boyhood days when he was waterboy for the Renegades at Griffith Field. Bowser, an Oklahoma native whose family moved here before he was a year old, was a star at Bakersfield High, BC and Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, and survived the 1960 plane crash in Ohio which killed 22 members of that college team. Bowser's first head coaching job was at Shafter High before he joined Gerry Collis' BC staff, serving as Renegade assistant coach for `7 years before moving up to the head position in 1984. His 11-season record of 83-31-3, included one national championship, in 1988, six Western State Conference titles and seven Potato Bowl appearances. The '88 Potato Bowl win over Fullerton, with the nation tittle at stake, ranks as one of the Renegades' most sensational all-time victories.