Littlefield’s Brenden Bowman signed his offer on Tuesday evening to continue his baseball and academic career at Wayland Baptist University.
The former Wildcat signed during a small ceremony at Wildcat Baseball Field, surrounded by family, friends, teammates, classmates and coaches. Bowman talked about how it feels to be signed, stating, “I just want to thank God and my coaches for preparing me for this moment. It is really a relief to be signed. It was kind of a struggle trying to find a place, especially towards the end of the season, but I finally found a few places to go.”
He added, “However, it ended up being an easy decision, because Wayland welcomed me with open arms and treated me like family and took me in. The coaches were nice, it’s a great campus and great school.”
Bowman was a two-sport athlete playing football and baseball for four years for the Wildcats.
He talked about the recruiting process, saying, “I had a visit scheduled to Cisco, but the day before I was supposed to go there, I committed to Wayland because I didn’t want to go somewhere where there was 60 people on a roster. Wayland has a D-I transfer whose coming in at catcher and is a senior, so I will get to sit and develop behind him.”
He added, “I had another offer from Oklahoma Wesleyan University, but WBU was closer to home and it was just an easy decision to make.”
Bowman was a four-year varsity player for the Wildcats, starring as the starting catcher the last three years. He also saw some innings at pitcher over his time at Littlefield.
As a senior Bowman earned 1st team All-District catcher honors and was selected to play in the Greater West Texas Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Game.
“I knew I wanted to play college baseball from the moment I started playing as a kid,” he explained. “I love the game, I love being out there with friends and I love to compete. That was the biggest part of it, was that I didn’t want to quit competing, because if I didn’t go play, I knew I wouldn’t have much else to compete for.”
Bowman talked about what stuck out to him about WBU over the other schools, saying, “The relationships that I had with the coaches almost instantly. I walked in the building on my visit and they welcomed me with open arms and as a family member and we instantly had a connection together.”
The former Wildcat talked about how his time spent as a Wildcat helped prepare him to play at the next level, saying, “My time as a Wildcat helped prepare me to compete at the next level, especially with facing adversity. My freshman year we were really good, and then my junior and sophomore year we were kind of average and faced a lot of adversity and I feel like that really prepared me for my senior year, where we ended up being really good. Dealing with adversity really helped prepare me for this next step and the coaches did a great job preparing me for what is next.”
The WBU signee stated that his favorite memory as a Wildcat was just being out there at practice everyday, laughing and competing with each other.
He added, “Also, the relationships I’ve been able to build with the coaches; I’ve known them all of my life, and when I came to high school, they welcomed me in as family and it just grew from that point.”
Bowman talked about the support he has gotten from his family, stating, “They’ve always wanted me to succeed and get better; we went through some tough times, but that was just them wanting me to get better and I didn’t realize that until I got older. They’ve helped me with so much, helping me develop as a baseball player and as a man. They helped me mature and prepare for life.”
Bowman joins a Pioneer Baseball team that finished the 2024 campaign 23-30 overall, 11-13 in conference play. They went 1-2 in the SAC Tournament and went 02 in the NCCAA Baseball World Series.
Brandon Bowman, Brendon’s dad talked about what it means to them to get to see their son compete in college, saying, “It’s a great feeling to see him continue on; he’s going to get a little help paying for college, he gets to keep playing the sport he loves and he’s close enough so that we’ll get to see at least half of his games.”
He added, “This is what he’s been working for since he was old enough to play baseball, that was his goal, to play college baseball. It’s good to see him get to do it and get to do it close enough for us to be able to see him play quite a bit. And, what is really special is that it is a Christian university.”
Bowman plans to major in Sports Exercise and Health Science.