Pat Bowen
Los Gatos Athletic Club
Inducted as Player in 2026
 

Pat was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1952 and grew up in Maple Heights, Ohio.  For those of you who cannot do the math, that makes Pat 74 years old today. In high school Pat was a proficient wrestler wrestling for a state championship team. As luck would have it, Pat broke his leg twice while wrestling only to have his back-up win the state title.

After high school, Pat attended Kent State University enrolling in the ROTC program meaning that he had an obligation of three years duty after graduation. Some of you may recall the 1970 incident with the National Guard firing on unarmed demonstrators at Kent State killing and injuring a number of students. It was a brave move for Pat to enroll and graduate the ROTC program two years later. At Kent State, Pat learned to play handball. In 1976, Pat was stationed at the Fort Ord military base in California for the next three years as a Second Lieutenant. Luckily for Pat, he was stationed in the heart of handball heaven.

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At that time, California was in its hay-day of competitive handball. Northern and Southern California had hundreds of extremely good handball players. I met Pat at the Salinas YMCA about 1977 and we played ball four or five times a week hoping to improve our games. After three years, Pat’s stint with the Army was over leaving the military as a First Lieutenant and moving to San Jose getting a job at Fairchild Semiconductor. Thank you for your service!!!

From there both his and my handball games flourished with the opportunity to play against many great players. We worked ourselves up through the B’s and by the late 70’s and early 80’s we were playing open handball.

Pat lived in central California for 31 years before moving to San Diego. During that time period, his handball career flourished. It’s funny that when talking about Pat it mirrors my (Jim Tamagni) handball career …. same age … learned together … won together … and lost together a lot!!! On the national level, his resume is not that staggering. He made the finals of the 1988 Berkeley nationals, 35-singles losing to part-time pro Roger Berry in the finals. Pat had many semifinal finishes in the 40’s and the 50’s in the three- and four-wall USHA Nationals and the World Championships in Pheonix, Arizona. His biggest accomplishment was in the National Open Doubles Championships in the early 80’s when he and I finished in the top eight in the country in Chicago beating then part-time pro Ray Estevez to get to the quarter finals against Poncho Monreal. That might not sound like much to many people but that year there were over 80 teams competing. Needless to say, he had the opportunity to play many great players and learn to win and lose against the best.

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Of course, this is the Northern California Hall of Fame and not the National HOF that he is being inducted into and Pat had an excellent 31-year run in California. He beat players like David Wyrsch, Fred Bancalari, Don Chamberlin, Kelly Russell, Jaime Paredes, Rod Prince, Jon Kendler, Mike McDonald, Jim Triplett, Mike Kelly, the Capell's and even lost a 11-10 tie breaker to David Chapman in the Southend Rowing Club Tournament and had close matches against Naty “El Gatto” Alvarado and Bo Bolinski and Jim Barnett and Jim Vandenboss. Pat won numerous NorCal Regionals in the Open, the 40’s and the 50’s. By far his biggest win was in the 1984 Sacramento Open. That year there were 525 entrants and Jerry Cooke needed three handball clubs to pull-off the tournament. Playing open doubles with me, we managed to knock-off two of the top four teams in the country back-to-back. Don Chamberlin and Kelly Russell in an 11-9 tiebreaker in the semis and Rick Christian and Mike Connors 21-12 and 21-4. The most memorable part of that tournament was listening to Chamberlin screaming up and down the corridor after the match that they had lost to a “C-Doubles” team. That made Pat and I feel good knowing we were the best “C-Doubles” team in the country. To follow that up, he and Kelly Russell won the NorCal Regionals in Pleasanton over Christian and Connors again. Few players from NorCal can say they beat Rick and Mike once let alone twice in a career.   

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Outside of the Regionals, Pat won plenty of tournaments with Tom Fitzwater, Mike Dunne Jr., John Harris and Dick David to name a few. He won in Monterey, Merced, San Jose, Pleasanton, Reno and the Southend and many other tournaments throughout California. Pat hated to lose and threw a lot of tantrums firing every partner he ever played with from the left to the right including the left-handed Jon Kendler … a USHA Open Doubles National Champion. Thankfully for me, I got fired early in our career making me a left-handed right-side player which suited me perfectly. I can’t say the same for the rest of his partners.

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I have to say though, his tenacity, will to win, a nice two-handed game and consistency are the reason we are inducting him into the Northern California HOF. Congratulation Pat … it may have taken you 31 years of playing to get here but you earned it. Welcome to the Hall of Fame!!!!

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Submitted by Jim Tamagni
July 15, 2024