Arkansas State hired Tom Bowen as the new vice chancellor for intercollegiate athletics. Bowen, former Memphis athletic director, is now the 12th official director of athletics at Arkansas State. Bowen was announced to be A-State’s new AD on Wednesday and introduced to the public at an official press conference on Thursday. 

“When Dr. Damphousse asked me if I would assist him in this process and work through it, we both agreed that at the beginning we wanted to take our time,” Arkansas State University System President Dr. Charles Welch said. “We wanted to be methodical. We wanted to make sure we got the right fit for where our program is at this particular point in time and where we want it to be.” 

Bowen has almost 15 years of experience as a Football Bowl Subdivision athletics director. Bowen was a director of athletics at San Jose State University for over seven years before he went to the University of Memphis where he worked as director of athletics for another seven years. Bowen also worked as an executive with the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. He spent his last two years as the founder and president of Bellwether Athletic Leadership Strategies. 

“We had an extraordinary number of applicants and individuals who were interested in the position that we talked to but Tom kept coming back to our conversations because of his experience, his transformative work that he did both at San Jose State and Memphis as an athletic director,” Welch said. “The fact there are four sitting AD’s at the G5 and P5 levels that worked for Tom in their career that he helped mentor and develop. He had a true vision of what this athletics program could be.” 

Bowen has been hired after former Athletic Director Terry Mohajir’s departure from A-State. Mohajir worked at Arkansas State from 2012-2021. Under Mohajir, A-State claimed 25 conference championships. 

“I have been on this campus many times and have seen the amazing and unbelievable trajectory changes that have taken place at Arkansas State University under Terry Mohajir,” Bowen said. “I am honored to follow him as the vice chancellor of athletics at Arkansas State.” 

Bowen has a lot of visions for Arkansas State with a couple he said that are already in motion. A lot of goals stem from dealing with post-pandemic reopening and reconfiguration both in the spring and fall of 2021. 

“I’ll meet with every head coach and allow them one-on-one and sit down and get through strengths and weaknesses and things they want to have addressed,” Bowen said. “Chancellor Kelly has already given me some great priorities that I’ll be able to deal with and formulate a cohesiveness of what we are going to do.” 

Bowen has a focus on not only bettering the program but on making sure that student-athletes aren’t just succeeding in athletics but also in academics.

“You can’t have excellence in the field of competition or the arena or the sports field if you can’t have excellence in the classroom. Period,” Bowen said. “We are not athlete students here, we are student athletes.”

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