Playing for a Winner—Remembering Coach Milton Jowers  by Vernon McDonald was published May 9, 2009.

Vernon's tenure at SWT, as student and assistant coach in the period 1949-1961, coincided with the glory years of Bobcat basketball and the high-water mark of Milton Jowers' extraordinary coaching career.

Now, writing a book was not one of the projects on McDonald's retirement "to-do" list; however, team-mates, students, and friends had been pestering him for years to write down the Jowers' stories which he had long told with such wit and aplomb. Finally, several months ago a group of former students sat him down in front of a recorder and the story telling began. Soon, yarns about Jowers were pouring in by email from ex-players across the State and the collection grew to book size.

The finished manuscript is neither a biography of Jowers nor a history of his era, but it is, rather, a collection of brief reminiscences by dozens of former student athletes who shared in the exhilarating achievements of the 1950s and early '60s. Jowers was tough and demanding, taciturn and frequently rude, and single-minded in his quest for excellence. He had an uncanny ability to get remarkable performance from players of limited natural ability. The resulting success created a cohesiveness and an esprit de corps among his teams that have lasted a lifetime.

And, Jowers was very successful, indeed, both as an athlete and as a coach. Born in McMahan, a small community east of Lockhart, in 1914, he enrolled in Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1931. He was all-conference in both football ("known for his ability to catch difficult passes") and basketball ("an uncannily accurate one-hand push shot"). After graduation, he coached in high school for six years—three at Teague, one at Shiner, and two at San Marcos, compiling a cumulative 223-20 record. His 1940 San Marcos Rattlers went 45 and 1 in winning the State Basketball Championship, one of only two in the school's history. He joined the Navy in 1941, where he rose to the rank of Commander.

After World War II, Athletic Director Oscar Strahan hired him as head basketball coach, a post he held from 1946 until 1961. His record was extraordinary. During this fifteen-year period he won six Lone Star Conference Championships, took the Bobcats to the National NAIA Tournament in Kansas City six times, won that National Championship in 1960, and compiled an overall 287-105 (73 percent) win/loss record.

By the late 1950's, Bobcat football was struggling, and President Flowers persuaded Jowers to resume leadership of that sport which he had coached briefly in the early '50s. Jowers agreed, providing that McDonald would take over the basketball program. After a rebuilding year in 1961, Jowers won 26 and lost 2 in the next three years, including a perfect 10-0 record and a Lone Star Conference championship in 1963. This undefeated season is one of only three in Texas State football history. From 1964 until his death in 1972 he was full-time Athletic Director.