Eamon Bowler

Eamon Bowler (with son Tim) helped a lot of San Bruno kids as coach of the powerhouse Wilkinson Wildcats, as well as many other teams during his 20-plus years volunteering.

By John Murphy

Back in college I got a job as a recreation leader and was assigned to John Muir School in San Bruno.

That’s where I met Eamon Bowler — “The Man, The Myth, The Legend — as his son Tim likes to say.

Tim was 8 years old and a budding sports star. His father Eamon offered to help coach our teams and he checked all my boxes:  1. Had a truck to haul the team around; 2. Had a son who shot a basketball like Rick Barry; and 3. Had a wife (Jane) who cooked like Giada De Laurentis.

Check, check and check. And, of course, he was a great coach, too.

Eamon was about 6 feet tall and burly, with tattoos on both forearms from his stint in the Navy. He hailed from the Sunset District of San Francisco and Riordan High School and was irrevocably Irish – talkative, quick with a quip and unfiltered.

Eamon’s job as a groundskeeper in The City was perfect. He arrived at playground on time each day, sometimes with his daughters Susie and Shelley (both a few years older than Tim) in tow.  

We won a lot of games and Eamon had a special way with kids, teaching them the fundamentals and keeping things light with his good-natured teasing.  

Same with his Pee Wee League baseball team, the powerhouse Wilkinson Wildcats. Joey Serafini, Scott Delucchi, Mike Cochrane, Chris Rhoades, Steve Angeloni, Dave Cresta, Kevin Sinclair, Matt Coates – the team was loaded. And Eamon, or “Pops” as I called him, stood out as the only manager in the league to wear a full uniform.

Nothing lasts forever. I graduated from college in 1978 and was hired as the sports editor of the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian. I had never lived away from home and was nervous, but Pops had a plan.

He took me to the now-defunct TGIF’s in San Bruno for several cocktails. Then it was back to his house for gin fizzes. By half-way through the second blender, Pops was asleep on the couch. Me? I repaired to the master bedroom where I removed all my clothes and crawled underneath the sheets.

That’s where Jane Bowler found me when she got home from work – snoring, without a stitch of clothing and dead to the world. Ah, the memories.

Tim starred in basketball and baseball at Capuchino High and Canada College. He was inducted into the Canada College Sports Hall of Fame in 2017.  He invited me to the event at the San Mateo Elks Club and I was grateful to see his dad one last time.

A year later Eamon Bowler died at age 83. But before that he helped a ton of kids and was cherished by many, including me.