
LOS ANGELES — Nike Sparq camps are annual collections of the hottest high school football recruits in a specific region of the country. They’re a who’s who of four- and five-star talent, the fastest, tallest and most athletic players in the entire country, all showcasing their skills in what many describe as the prep version of the NFL overall.
Players who attend invite-only events hold offers from some of America’s most blueblood college programs.
Except for one guy.
Brock Bowers showed up at the 2019 Nike Sparq Camp in the Bay Area with a scholarship offer (from Nevada). And yet, he mystified an audience of spectators, many of whom remained in disbelief during his 40-meter run time.
He ran it in 4.5 seconds. Dubious about such a time from a player they did not recognize, the camp officials asked him to run it again.
He ran it in 4.5 seconds. And that’s without much practice. It was the first time he was seriously timed in the 40. He didn’t have the proper placement, release, or hand position.
“He ran it in a lineman position,” laughs Nathan Kenion, the Bowers seven-on-seven coach who earned him an invite to the combine-style event. “Afterwards, everyone started hitting him. ‘Hi who are you?'”
It seems like an eternity ago now. Two years into his college career at Georgia, Bowers is playing his second national championship game and entering this one, as he did his last, as the team’s leading receiver.
Before the top-seeded Bulldogs (14-0) meet TCU (13-1) on Monday at SoFi Stadium, Bowers is surrounded by a group of curious reporters during the team’s media day, attempting to explain this meteoric rise from its unrecognizable. player from Napa, Calif., in 2019, already arguably the best tight end in UGA history a few years later.
Like his appearance at Nike camp, he’s not really meant to be here. In fact, without his 7-on-7 coach arguing with camp officials to include Bowers – they initially rejected him – there’s a chance he’ll remain in hiding in wine country playing for a team. struggling high school (they went 0–10 their sophomore season).
His 40 time, vertical leap and other metrics caught the eye of scouts, and at the start of his junior football season, Bowers went from one scholarship offer to about two dozen. Welcome to college football recruiting, where a few strides of your legs can turn into a paid trip to a school.
But there’s a lot more to love about Bowers.
He’s height: 6’4″, 230 pounds. He’s got insane athleticism: Have you seen him defy gravity against Ohio State?
He has strength: he is muscular from head to toe. He has intelligence: he never did worse than a B in school.
And he’s got pedigree: His parents both played sports at Utah State (dad Warren was an offensive lineman and mom DeAnna was a record-breaking softball pitcher).
“The 40-yard running time put it on the map,” said Richie Wessman, Brock’s high school coach in Napa. “It took like wildfire. One program after another got interested. They’d all come to school and you’d go through their list of questions about him and at the end they’d be like, ‘How could you not want that kid?’ »
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Over the past two years, the once unknown prospect has become one of the most unstoppable forces college football has ever seen. Bowers draws comparisons to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, 49ers big man George Kittle and Kyle Pitts, the former Florida tight end drafted fourth in the 2021 draft.
Kenion thinks Bowers is a better receiver than all of them. The numbers bear this out. In 29 games played, he had 112 catches for 1,672 yards and 19 touchdowns. His sophomore numbers this year are almost identical to a freshman’s (in fact, he has the exact same number of takes).
The defensive coordinators took a good look at him in 2021, strategized to stop him, and seemed to fail miserably. In a line that is sure to make opposing coaches feel even worse, Bowers says he arrived in Georgia with little knowledge of attacking football.
“I didn’t know anything when I came here,” he says. “I knew: ‘Take the ball and run. “”
He has, of course, got help from a stable of talented teammates. His teammate, Darnell Washington, is one of the most colossal figures in the game, at 6’7”, 270 lbs. “It’s tough defending both of us on the roads,” Bowers said. “Usually one of us is open.”

Bowers showed his big-play ability against Ohio State, racking up 64 yards on four catches.
Joshua L. Jones/USA TODAY NETWORK
That may not be the case on Monday. Washington is doubtful to play after spraining his ankle in the semifinal win over Ohio State.
This means Bowers is left all alone. Nobody is worried. After all, he’s a kid who played every position on the basketball court in high school and almost every one of them on the football field too. He played defensive end and outside linebacker on defense and at various times on offense played quarterback, receiver and tight end.
In an unusual statistic for his position, Bowers opened his freshman high school season by returning a kickoff for a touchdown. “Things you don’t see,” Kenion jokes, “tight ends like kick returns.”
Longtime NFL draft analyst Rob Rang says Bowers is the best tight end he’s seen in more than 25 years of analyzing draft prospects. Kenion says he is ushering in a new era in the position.
“It paints a picture of the next wave of tight ends,” Kenion says. “You have the tight end in line and the pure receiver who can’t block. Brock, he’s big enough to block, can take fly shots, can catch bubbles, can go deep, block on the edge. He can do everything receivers can do and tight ends can do in the box.
It’s no wonder that within weeks of his arrival in Athens, the coaches started creating wrinkles in the attacking game plan in a bid to get him the ball. Brock says he was shocked when he heard this.
John Cortese was not.
“It’s pretty rare to see someone with his combination of height and speed,” said Cortese, Bowers’ personal trainer. “It’s incredible.”
Few know Bowers better than Cortese. He owns a training facility in Napa, where Bowers spent most of his junior and senior year of high school as the pandemic shut down much of his hometown. Cortese often moved gear outside to a parking lot for practice to comply with California policies.

Bowers worked with his personal trainer Cortese throughout the canceled 2020 high school football season.
Photo courtesy of John Cortese
Californians endured strict COVID-19 protocols for more than a year beginning in March 2020, Bowers High School’s first spring. The parks were closed. Gyms have been closed. Football practice would start then stop, resume then stop. Finally, it’s definitely over: his senior season has been canceled.
Napa is unusual in that the community’s football and soccer fields are operated and owned by school districts, meaning that amid the pandemic, no one was allowed there. It didn’t matter that they were outside.
Bowers broke rules, practiced routes with friends, and was regularly chased off the fields by school administrators.
“It sucked,” Bowers says flatly.
“He would call me angry,” Mom DeAnna says. “He was like, ‘I’m going to Alston Park! “”
Alston Park is a hilly and scenic area for biking and hiking on the outskirts of Napa, surrounded by orchards and vineyards, which is a big surprise. When Brock wasn’t training in the Cortese parking lot or being kicked out of those school grounds, he was at Alston running sprints, working on agility drills and hoisting up. incredibly steep hills.
He would film himself and send them to the Georgia coaches. They watched them from their desks in amazement.
What can’t this child do? !
What they didn’t know was that the pandemic, like many young people, was having a serious impact on Brock’s mental state. Thank goodness for Alston Park, says DeAnna. It helped her son physically, of course, but also mentally. “Running uphill was an outlet for frustration,” she says.
“He’s watching all the other guys in his class and they’re able to get their senior season on time this fall,” Warren said. “He couldn’t have had that.”
The pandemic also halted Brock’s recruiting. A year after running that 40 that got him noticed, Brock and his parents took a multi-day trip to visit six schools — a southern swing to see LSU, Georgia and Clemson, and a Midwestern swing to see Our Dame, Michigan and Penn State.
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During the trip, COVID-19 shut down the country. Bowers would not have another face-to-face meeting with a coach before signing to Georgia in January 2021.
It’s been a pretty crazy ride, all leading up to this fairy tale ending to his sophomore year: He’s, thankfully, back in California. DeAnna took a break from her job as a high school math teacher. She didn’t miss a game in Brock’s two seasons at Georgia, having grown accustomed to that nonstop Delta flight from Sacramento to Atlanta.
The Bowers family will have at least 25 members at SoFi Stadium, building on this kid who put himself on the map five years ago just hours north of here.
“I think everyone here is like, ‘He’s finally out here!'” DeAnna laughs.
Back in Napa, Georgia is suddenly a local favorite. Cortese trains dozens of middle school and college students who have become Bulldogs fans. Dressed in Georgian shirts and hats, they enter his gym often hoping their local hero is there. “They ask when he’s coming back!” said Cortese.
Well, he’s back – a few hundred miles south, closing in on a second championship ring in a second season in college.
“Last year in Indianapolis, it didn’t seem real. This kid is playing for a national title? DeAnna said. “And now a second one in California? It’s incredible.”