Clint Bowen Thankful to Oklahoma State for ‘Surreal’ Chance to Coach Son

STILLWATER — At one time, college football felt like the thing that tore Clint Bowen away from his family. These days, Oklahoma State’s interim defensive coordinator is just thankful for the moments it gives him with his son, Banks Bowen.

“I know for me, it’s something I never dreamed would happen,” Clint said of the chance to coach his son’s team. “I catch myself standing out there sometimes looking over and be like, holy cow, that’s my son wearing (the) Oklahoma State uniform, throwing a football around. You know, it’s kind of a surreal thing on a daily basis.”

The father and son didn’t plan this. Banks spent his first semester of college working with Tulsa in the spring before entering the portal and joining the Cowboys.

As it turned out, that decision proved to be an important one for the Cowboys, considering Banks began working as the second-string quarterback following the injury to Hauss Hejny in the season opener.

Obviously the Cowboys would rather not need Banks out on the field this season, but Oklahoma State lost two quarterbacks to injury just last year so the team needs to ensure he’s ready to play. For Clint, who until this week worked as an offensive assistant, that means he hears a fair amount of criticism of his son.

“It probably gets uncomfortable at times,” interim coach Doug Meacham said. “Because we’re in there, ‘damn it, that was a horrible read.’ You know and stuff, he’s sitting in there. So it’s a little bit kind of look over (wondering) is he going to get mad at me for saying his son is garbage? But no, he’s a coach. Been around his whole life. His son’s been around his whole life, they all get it.”

To hear Clint talk, it sounds like other coaches criticizing his son’s decision-making might not be the toughest conversations he had about coaching his children.

When Clint decided to step away from coaching college football following the 2020 season, he began coaching his sons’ high school team.

“My first son (Baylor) got it bad,” Clint said. “I came home a few nights and my wife was like, ‘We need to talk. The way you’re running the Lawrence High program is not working for our son, and we’re going to fix this.’ So by the time I got to Banks, my wife had educated me on what it means to coach your son and how to treat him.”

Clint can smile about it now. On Monday he said he calmed down a lot before Banks took over at quarterback during his last two years when he threw for more than 4,000 yards, rushed for more than 2,100 yards and scored 63 total touchdowns.

Meacham said it’s incredible that the two get to share this experience at a Power Four program.

“It’d be really cool for me, for any of us, to think about your son on the same team you’re coaching on,” Meacham said. “That’d be kind of neat because that’ll carry with you the rest of your life.”

For his part, Clint acknowledged there were, and might still be, times when he appreciates the father-son, coach-player combo more than his son does.

“I guess I don’t know how much he enjoyed having dad yell at his friends (in high school) and all that every day and hold his friends accountable,” Clint said. “But for me, it was something that I’m thankful that I chose to do. It might not have been the greatest for my career, but for me, I would do it in a heartbeat over and over again.”