SPRING 2019 RUGBY: Timmy Bowser East

Boardman football’s loss was the East rugby team’s gain in 2019. Timmy Bowser, who just completed his junior year at Boardman High School, gave up football last summer to concentrate on basketball. But when he was cut, he gave rugby, a sport only offered at East and Chaney, his full attention.

In 2018, East won the Division III state championship in Bowser’s first season with the Golden Bears.

“Our chemistry was good, we were focused and we’re a family,” Bowser said of bonding with his teammates. “We knew we worked harder than most teams.”

In East’s second season, the Golden Bears rugby team went 6-0-1 in the regular season and Bowser excelled even though he was bothered by a nagging groin injury he suffered in track doing the high jump.

“Coming off of last year, we were inspired, motivated to try and work as hard as we could,” Bowser said.

Bowser, who is 5-feet 5 3/4 inches tall and weighs maybe 150 pounds, excels at a sport where bigger athletes are tackling and no one wears pads.

“We’re literally not scared of anything — that’s the mentality we have,“ Bowser said.

Bowser’s father, Tim, bought him a skull cap.

“I tried it in practice, didn’t like it,” Bowser said. “We gave it somebody who had a cut on the head.”

The biggest difference from season one to season two for East was the elimination of Div. III. That meant a much tougher road to a repeat.

In the Div. II postseason, East defeated Canal Fulton Northwest, 103-0, in the first round before being ousted by Avon Lake, 43-7. Bowser scored the Golden Bears’ only try in their final match.

Bowser’s favorite subject is math.

“It just comes easy to me,” Bowser said.

Denise McConnell, his second-grade teacher at Robinwood Elementary School, is his favorite.

“She brought the energy that I bring,” Bowser said. “She built my personality, in a way.”

This summer, Bowser is getting ready for football season, hoping to be a slot receiver for the Spartans when the season kicks off in August.

“I did miss it a little bit,” Bowser said of football. “I’d like to focus on football to get to college,” adding that a rugby offer would be enticing.

“Rugby might be easier,” he said of the difficulty of landing a football scholarship.