Fowler has overcome adversity on his way to UA

MOBILE | If his motivation to play football had just been for himself, for the scholarship offers and all the local adulation that goes with being a top recruit, sitting out the 2009 season would have been tough enough for Jalston Fowler.

It was tougher because his motivation to play was, instead, for Joe Fowler.

In May, 2007, an accidental gunshot wound separated the practically inseparable brothers. Joe, a junior basketball player at Mobile Murphy High, lost his life, Jalston, then a sophomore football player at Mobile Vigor, lost his brother.

And for a while, a community lost all that made sense.

'I was just riding around and went to my great grandmother's house and she told me my brother had been shot, but we didn't know where until we got to the hospital,' said Fowler, a University of Alabama commitment. 'They said he got shot in the head, and the whole thing went from there.'

It was at this point that anyone who knew Jalston Fowler only as an outstanding athlete began to realize the 16-year-old was much, much more.

Vigor coach Kerry Stephenson said Jalston found the strength to console the friend of Joe's who was involved in the accident. When grief-stricken Murphy students refused to attend class in the days following the tragedy, it was Jalston who coaxed them back through the schoolhouse doors.

'One day he went over to Murphy to help them get control over there,' Stephenson said. 'Kids were out of class crying, wouldn't go to class, and he told them, ‘Hey, you all need to go to class. Joe wouldn't want you all out here.''

Simply put, Jalston Fowler doesn't need to be on a football field to amaze people. His is a story that turns on actions, not athleticism.

It is how he has consoled others through grief that he, admittedly, hasn't gotten past himself.

How he went from repeating the seventh grade to graduating from high school in three and a half years and scoring a perfect 100 on a Trigonometry exam.

How he responded to being ineligible to play football as a Vigor senior, a season that would have been for Joe, by being an assistant coach, instead. And how he learned an important lesson in the hardest way possible.

'I don't like guns,' Fowler said. 'Don't want to see one, don't want to touch one, don't want to be around one.'

Early setback

As soon as he saw Fowler's birth date, Stephenson saw the problem coming. The youngster was only in the eighth grade at the time, but with a birth date of July 27, the Vigor coach already knew he would be ineligible to play as a high school senior because of the Alabama High School Athletic Association's age limit rule. Had he been born four days later he would have cleared the cut off and suited up this season for Vigor. Instead, those four days kept him on the sidelines for the four months of the 2009 season.

'The first thing we did was visit with his mom and tell her, ‘He's going to be too old to play his senior year, so we're going to try to get him out of here in three or three-and-a-half years,'' Stephenson said. 'We were able to accomplish that.'

Fowler will graduate from Vigor on Friday and will be among several Alabama commitments who enroll early at the Capstone. As a result, he will be eligible to compete in spring drills next March, giving him an advantage over the bulk of the signing class, which will enroll in June.

Fowler had repeated the seventh grade for academic reasons, causing the age rule to come into play.

'Acting the fool,' Fowler said in describing his seventh-grade troubles.

Stephenson, however, is convinced there was likely more to it.

'If he was having problems in class, it was because he was bored,' said Stephenson, who verified Fowler's recent A-plus on a Trig exam. 'He's so smart he didn't get why other kids didn't get it so he started goofing off. Even in the sixth grade, I didn't know him then, but I can guarantee you he was above what they were teaching.'

Thus, Fowler had four years to prepare for the inevitable sit-out. His junior season, when he rushed for over 1,000 yards for the Class 5A state champions, he knew it would be his last chance to play for his brother for at least a year.

'I want to do everything I do for him. He was a big influence on my life. That's the reason I want to do all this: win a championship, be the best I can be, all for Joe,' Jalston Fowler said.

Instead of playing this fall, Fowler took on a student coaching role, helping Vigor running backs coach Travis Jones tutor younger players at his position.

'He was very helpful in teaching those young guys. I have an unusual ball placement in the way I teach them to carry the football, across the chest, and the younger guys didn't understand it,' Jones said. 'But most of those guys saw him play and he's someone they can emulate -- that's positive. He was on the sideline and his presence meant so much. I'm going to miss him.'

Striking Gold

Today, Fowler is a chiseled, 240-pound athlete, standing a compact 6 feet tall, with experience at both linebacker and running back. As a junior, he led Vigor in rushing on offense. As a sophomore, he played strictly on defense and led the team in tackles.

As a freshman, he started for the varsity right from his first game.

Fowler began working out with the Vigor football team in the spring of his eight-grade year at Mobile's Calloway-Smith Middle School. Stephenson used to pick him up after school to drive him to Vigor and recalls the first day he brought the youngster in.

'He was already 5-11, 215 pounds. I saw him and I said, ‘This can't be the kid.' Then we get to the school, get in the weight room and he takes his shirt off. Oh, my God. His first day in the weight room, no lie, he benched 235 pounds, in the eighth grade. He was dunking basketballs then at 5-11. I thought I had struck gold. I felt like a gold digger that had finally come up on it.'

In time, coaches came to realize Fowler's speed was as impressive as his size and strength. Wolves wide receiver coach Houston Langham said the most impressive play Fowler ever made (a choice echoed by Stephenson) came from the wide receiver position.

'We motioned him into the slot and threw a fade in the end zone to him and he split two defenders and went up and pulled it down with one hand,' Langham said. 'He's a special, special player. He can do it all.'

Stephenson knows what National Football League talent looks like in high school, because he's coached it: Ellis Lankster of the Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans lineman Sen'Derrick Marks and Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Earnest Graham, among others. Without the slightest hesitation, Stephenson says, 'Jalston's a better athlete than all those guys. You've seen that No. 92 (James Harrison) that makes all those plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers? That could easily be Jalston.'

For now, it's offense where Fowler would prefer to compete. He will enter UA as a running back with hopes of filling the third-back role of departing senior Roy Upchurch. And getting the head start in the spring will be no small advantage.

'It will be very helpful. By the time the season starts I will have learned the plays, learned the offense,' Fowler said.

The Willis Factor

When Alabama hired James Willis away from Auburn to coach linebackers, Fowler's decision to attend UA became far easier. Willis had recruited the Mobile area for Auburn for years and had developed a strong enough relationship with Fowler that he wanted to be a Tiger despite growing up an Alabama fan who idolized former Crimson Tide running back Shaun Alexander.

'Coach Willis loved him when he was at Auburn, but he couldn't sell him to the new staff,' Stephenson said, referring to Willis' short stint as a holdover under new AU head coach Gene Chizik. 'So we went down to Southern Miss and he didn't fit their mold, so he got discouraged. I said, ‘You've just got to stay patient.' Coach Willis ended up going to Alabama, went over there and showed coach (Nick) Saban his film and he said, ‘I think we need to offer him.''

Despite being a year removed from his last football game, Fowler has since fielded offers from all sorts of top programs, including Auburn, Tennessee, Mississippi State and Clemson.

'I told him, ‘Your word is your bond,'' Stephenson said. 'He's going where he committed.'

That's no issue for Fowler, who is looking forward to joining several friends already on the UA roster from the Mobile area, particularly former Vigor star B.J. Scott. When he finally does arrive next month, he will find most of Alabama's running backs returning to compete for playing time in 2010. Stephenson has little doubt that the player he calls the best athlete he's ever coached will, somehow, find a role in short order.

Yet it is Fowler's human quality that Stephenson speaks of first, and last.

Same with Jones.

Same with Langham.

'That young man, adversity comes and he just overcomes it,' Stephenson said. 'He's one of those people who has it -- whatever ‘it' is, he has it.'

Reach Chase Goodbread at chase.goodbread@tuscaloosanews.com, or at 205-722-0196.