Da'Quan's decree

When word came last night that Da'Quan Bowers won the Bronko Nagurski Award, couldn't help but think back to a lengthy conversation I had with him in July.

Bowers was wearing a cowboy hat as he walked off the practice fields following a session of voluntary workouts with his teammates. He had just come off the road from a trip out West playing gospel music with his late father.

Bowers didn't have a prepared statement or anything as we began the interview. But it was clear he wanted to send a message to everyone that things were going to be different from that point forward.

It's plenty common for players to say over the summer that they've worked harder than ever, given 110 percent, and are going to realize their potential this season. You hear it all the time.

What you don't hear often is a player who acknowledges being lazy, getting caught up in his own hype, and basically underachieving.

This is what Bowers enunciated back in July.

"I know what type of caliber player I can be, and I know I haven’t reached my full potential yet. Partly because of the mental toughness of the game, partly because of the physical toughness of the game.

“But it’s more mental than anything – not understanding what you have to do as a young player.

“I’ve been lazy. I cut corners all the time in workouts and all that because I didn’t realize what it meant. But not anymore. I can’t afford to."

A lot of folks were cynical and skeptical when they heard Bowers announcing things would never be the same. They thought it was easy for the kid to talk a good game in July.

Not gonna sit here and say I anticipated Bowers ascending to such a dominant stature that he'd bring home the hardware he picked up last night, but there was a genuineness and determination in his voice in July that made me think he meant business.

All this, of course, was before Bowers lost his father unexpectedly in August. No one knew how he would respond to such a devastating event. We all remember how Antonio Clay fell apart emotionally years ago after losing his sister in a tragic car accident.

A son's loss of his father is such a private thing that it's best to stay away from analyzing how Bowers handled the grieving process. We just don't know enough. And, really, we shouldn't know enough.

By the looks of things on the field, it certainly appears he handled it masterfully. And by his own account, Bowers used his father's death -- and his father's wishes for him to finally realize his potential in football -- as fuel for the masterpiece we all saw this fall.

But Bowers had to deal with this 24 hours a day, and surely it was a tremendously difficult event to overcome. Surely he's still trying to overcome it in a lot of ways.

Bowers, of course, came to Clemson regarded as the No. 1 prospect nationally. But there's so much more to him than his accolades and his status as a gridiron monster who gives quarterbacks bad dreams.

We saw another side of Bowers' personality in the summer of 2009 when we did a video feature on his "other" life as a guitar hero in his father's band.

During that video shoot, Bowers came off as a warm, gentle soul who was interested in the video feature not for self-promotion, but for promotion of the gospel he and his band mates spread while touring the country.

Hearing him peacefully reflect on his musical craft, and watching him delicately strumming the strings of his electric guitar, it was almost hard to believe this was the same guy who would ultimately be paid millions upon millions of dollars to pillage opposing backfields in the sport of football.

“If somebody told me tomorrow that I couldn’t play football anymore, I’d know what I would do for the rest of my life,” he said.

His father told us at the time that his son derived great joy out of "seeing people out there with their souls happy."

“If he wasn’t talented in football, I think he’d try to make a career out of gospel music. He really loves it. I started real young, and he’s right in my footsteps.”

Bowers still had some growing up to do at the time of that video shoot, and he finally acknowledged that during our memorable conversation last July.

We'll close with the following observation from him during that interview -- an observation that didn't mean a whole heck of a lot then, but surely does now.

“It’s the little things that keep good players from being great players. And I don’t want to hold myself back from being the great player I know I can be. … It’s finally coming together. I guess once you get older, you get wiser.”

LW