By Cardinal Insider Steve Grinczel
The next time Chris Fowler sits down in the head coach's chair on the Saginaw Valley State University men's basketball bench, it will be the first time in more ways than one.
Hired on May 9 by Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics John Lewandowski to be the Cardinals' ninth head coach in school history, the 32-year-old Fowler never even led a high school program – with the exception of those for which he played.
It would be a mistake; however, to suggest the Southfield, Michigan, native is a "newbie" to the collegiate head coaching fraternity, apart from where he sits in terms of job seniority. Last season, Fowler served as the associate head coach at Western Michigan University, a promotion he earned after just two years under Broncos head man Dwayne Stephens.
However, his first suck-it-up lesson came while being coached by his father Bennie Sr. as a 6-year-old in the Detroit Police Athletic League. During his introductory press conference at SVSU, Fowler explained that he told his dad he didn't want to play point guard, especially against boys two years older. It was too hard difficult, he said. To which Bennie said, that's not a reason, it's a challenge.
Fowler's development as a head-coach-in-waiting continued at Detroit Country Day School, where he led the Yellowjackets to a state championship as a junior, and at the IMG Academy, an elite residential athletic and education institution in Bradenton, Florida. Meantime, the Fowler family's athletic DNA was flowering elsewhere as older brother Bennie starred at wide receiver for Michigan State University before embarking on a six-year NFL career with three different teams.
His leadership chops firmly established; Fowler began following a meticulously laid out plan that began to crystalize in his mind as a first-team All-Mid-American Conference point guard at Central Michigan in 2014-15.
"It goes back to my junior year and some of the things my head coach Keno Davis allowed me to do as a player for the team schematically, in terms of preparation," said Fowler, a rare, four-year collegiate captain. "That kind of showed me this is the route I want to take. Then, as I kept playing after college, the more and more people that I got in front of, and the more and more basketball I learned, I was thinking I definitely want to give this back. I kind of knew I wanted to be involved in the game my whole life, but that 'aha moment' came at Central Michigan."
After completing his record-setting career at CMU, Fowler played professionally overseas in Germany and Australia, and had a stint with the former Fort Wayne Ants in the NBA G League.
Fowler's first big break came in 2018 when he enrolled at MSU to pursue a master's degree in sports coaching and leadership and signed on as a graduate assistant with the Spartan basketball team under Hall of Fame coach Tom Izzo. Working beside Stephens, a Michigan State assistant coach at the time, Fowler soaked up every detail offered in the legendary program from the way Izzo was the first one to open the door in the morning, to preparing strategies to face iconic coaches like Kansas' Bill Self and Duke's Mike Krzyzewski.
"I always want to bring energy to my guys because one of the biggest things you learn from Coach Izzo is that your team is essentially going to be a reflection of you," Fowler said. "The mentality he brought to the office and the basketball court every day was that he doesn't take any days off and never overlooks any details. And that's kind of how I want to coach my team. I want to bring it every day. I want to be grateful for the opportunity to get up every morning and coach this basketball team and be appreciative of the opportunity to represent the university as its basketball coach.
"Coach with joy, coach with appreciation, coach with energy and have my players take on that same personality."
Fowler's first season at MSU ended with Big Ten regular-season and tournament championships, and Izzo's eighth Final Four. The Spartans' success was orchestrated on the floor by junior point guard Cassius Winston, who developed into the Big Ten Player of the Year and a second-team All-American thanks in large part to Fowler's coaching and counsel. Fowler's efforts continued to pay off in 2019-20 as Winston was the only unanimous preseason All-America selection and the top national Player of the Year candidate. The Spartans would go on to win the Big Ten Tournament and Winston repeated as a second-team All-American, but one of Izzo's best chances to win his second National Championship never materialized because the 2020 NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the COVID pandemic.
A former Division II All-American point guard at Northern Michigan, Izzo has an affinity for D2 players and programs. Izzo began his journey at MSU, like Fowler, as a Spartan grad assistant. Then, after a long tenure as a Spartan assistant and later as an associate head coach, Izzo got his first, and only, head-coaching job.
Fowler left MSU for his first full-time coaching job at Northern Arizona, where head coach Shane Burcar put him in charge of player skill development for guards. Player development and retention will be one of Fowler's most critical tasks at the NCAA Division II level.
"Chris Fowler knows how to create a winning culture," said Winston, who was a second-round NBA Draft pick and plays professionally in the Italian Basketball League. "He provides the perfect balance of leadership along with being able to relate to the players while helping them get on the floor and become the best versions of themselves both on and off the court. During my time at MSU, Chris played a huge role in helping me develop into the player I am today."
Name, image and likeness (NIL) money that flows so freely in Division I basketball will be limited at SVSU. And thanks to virtually unrestricted player movement via the transfer portal, schools like those the Cardinals compete with in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Conference are often plundered by D-I schools of the talent they found and nurtured. Fowler is unfazed by that development and looks at the challenge of player retention philosophically.
"That landscape is changing every day," he said. "At the end of the day, though, it's still going to be basketball and what we know is that there's always going to be good players out there. It's just going to be a matter of how you use them. Ever since I've been a full-time coach, the transfer portal has been a thing."
Fowler's experience playing international basketball should prove to be valuable.
"I'm very well-versed in players coming and going," he said. "The NIL landscape will continue to change, and we'll adapt and do whatever we can at this level to give our student-athletes the best experience possible. But if you love the game, the basketball part of it is fun, regardless. This is how it works overseas where you have to build a new roster every year and you're putting the pieces together all the time.
"I might have to be a better teacher every year and that challenge is a fun one if you truly love the process of the game."
Fowler isn't looking forward to the stars of the future who may get their starts at SVSU leaving early, but he accepts it within the context of the contemporary game.
"The joy of it all is you understand what players' goals are," he said. "As long as they enter this environment and treat it with respect and appreciation, if those are the goals they choose to reach for, all that does is bring the next person that wants to achieve those goals, too. The more people you can elevate, the more people that want to come in. That's how we want to replace people – through elevation, not elimination."
Fowler is thrilled to be coaching and recruiting in the famed Saginaw-Flint corridor, the state of Michigan's cradle of top basketball talent sought by colleges nationwide.
"The foundation of everything we do is going to be high school kids," Fowler said. "Playing at Country Day, we got a chance to play Saginaw High when they had Draymond Green and Tommy McCune, and Saginaw Arthur Hill when they had Dar Tucker and Mo Jones. And out of the Flint area we played Flint Powers with Patrick Lucas-Perry, so the basketball talent here is something I'm well-aware of and Saginaw is a basketball city. But I know how great the basketball tradition is all around the state and there's a lot of talent – hidden talent – I'm excited to go find.
"You have to attack the high school route because it allows you to build a foundation and mold those kids who start in your program and hopefully graduate from your program. But then you need to be able to sprinkle in a couple of transfers and junior college players to go along with it. All are going to be important depending on what the team needs."
Stephens has no doubt that Fowler has been a head-coaching-level talent hidden in plain sight for years.
"Chris Fowler is going to be a star in our business," Stephens said. "He has a great grasp for all aspects of the job and will do great things at SVSU. Chris has a tremendous basketball mind and is always trying to get better. He was a high-achieving player at CMU, with exceptional leadership skills. Chris is ready to lead his own program, and with his ability to bring out the best in his players, I expect the Cardinals will immediately begin climbing the GLIAC standings."
Izzo also looks forward to the resurgence of SVSU basketball.
"Chris Fowler is going be a great coach for Saginaw Valley and I think can lead your program to another level," Izzo said. "Hopefully, you'll enjoy him as much as I did. Good luck to all of you. I look forward to watching his success that I know he's going to have at SVSU."
Fowler's 22-page coaching philosophy and approach to basketball, including numerous offensive and defensive bullet points, could serve as the basis of a doctoral thesis. The bottom line; however, is to create an energized product that appeals to the fans in O'Neill Arena.
"It's the trend right now to play up-tempo and play with a lot of space and a lot of pace," he said. "That's what I want to do, but I also want to be very intentional both offensively and defensively. Intentional about how we're attacking different coverages and how we're creating different advantages. Defensively, we want to limit the advantages that are created against us and defend people into less-quality shots.
"I'm going to take as many measures as I can to have the team prepared to prevent a crisis beforehand, so we're not dealing with it during the game. That's a big Coach Izzo term, and Coach Stephens as well. During the game, I'm going to read the situation and what the basketball team needs. Whatever the game calls for to try to lead the team to victory is who I'm going to be. If I feel like there's a lot of emotion in the game that needs to be balanced out, then I'm going to try to be that balance. If the team is lacking a little bit of that emotion it needs to drive the game forward, then I'm going to bring that as well."
How Fowler plans to address the team huddled up on the floor before the first practice is still a work in progress, but it could go something like this: "I'm just going to look everybody in the eye and say, 'I'm happy to be here and hope you guys are, too. So, let's get to work.'"