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FOOTBALL Lynn Bowden Warren Harding
Lynn Bowden has a legitimate argument to be Ohio’s best football player in 2016. The Raiders’ senior quarterback was unstoppable, rushing for 2,277 yards and passing for 1,366 more. He scored 57 touchdowns.
Harding went 11-2, falling in the Division II, Region 5 championship, but Bowden’s career has left its mark on the Mahoning Valley.
“I was just out there doing what I was supposed to do,” Bowden said.
He owns or shares 16 school records. Including his numbers from his freshman and sophomore seasons at Liberty, he is Ohio’s sixth all-time rusher with 7,387 yards and 10th in rushing touchdowns with 91.
“It’s not much more to be satisfied with besides coming with a state championship, but for my high school career, it was pretty good,” Bowden said.
Bowden’s name can be said in the same sentence as other Harding greats such as Maurice Clarett, Mario Manningham and Daniel “Boom” Herron.
“They tell me to keep my head straight,” Bowden said.
Bowden is a four-star recruit on Rivals.com and has 11 offers, which includes schools like Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State.
Bowden was the Northeast Ohio Inland District Offensive Player of the Year for Division II. He was also the runner-up for Mr. Football, the title for Ohio’s best football player.
He credits keeping the hype surrounding himself and his team at arm’s length for his success this year. It was a pitfall he said he and some teammates fell in a year ago.
“Once you let your ego get ahead of you, like some of us did last year, we fell short — very short — of the dream,” Bowden said of Harding’s 8-4 mark in 2015. “We weren’t satisfied [in my junior year]. It happened and we wanted to push it to the side.”
Bowden hasn’t picked a school yet, but said he intends to study psychology while pursuing an NFL career.