'Hero' in Tennessee rape case always did right thing, friends say

When former Tennessee football player Drae Bowles was recruited out of high school in 2011, then head coach Derek Dooley was facing the challenge of rebuilding a team that had faced more than its fair share of off-the-field criminal behavior by some of its players.

The team's brushes with the law under former UT head coach  Phillip Fulmer were legendary, spawning the now annual "Fulmer Cup for Criminal Achievements," a parody award bestowed on the college football team with the most off-field criminal activities.

But in 2011, it was no joke to Dooley nor to his predecessor, Lane Kiffin, who had been trying to turn UT's image around while building a winning team.

Bowles was a standout recruit and an accomplished wide receiver. Off the field, Bowles texted Bible verses to friends and coaches, led the singing in the chapel at Jackson Christian School and liked to take his little brother to Dairy Queen, friends and former coaches told The Tennessean last week.

Sportswriters were impressed. 247Sports.com writer Wes Rucker wrote in 2011 under the headline "Building around Bowles" that the problems Dooley inherited wouldn’t be fixed overnight, but “kids like Drae Bowles — a great prospect and seemingly a great person — could really help the situation.”

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Five years later, the young man recruited to help turn around UT's culture has left the school, which is in the national media spotlight again — this time over allegations of sexual assaults by his teammates.

Bowles, who transferred to UT Chattanooga last year, is being called a hero by some for coming to the aid of a female student on the night she said she was raped by two of Bowles' teammates. Others — including UT head coach Butch Jones and a former UT teammate — have issued statements that call into question Bowles' version of the events that followed that night.

In his hometown of Jackson, 300 miles west of Knoxville, friends, former coaches and his pastor say they stand behind the young man they know as a devout Christian, the son of a sheriff's office captain, an exemplary student and athlete and a private person who would never seek the spotlight. They also said Bowles wouldn't hesitate to help someone in need.

"When all this originally happened, we were aware of it and prayed with the family and encouraged Drae to stay strong," said Randy Carter, pastor of Northside Assembly Church in Jackson. "I was saddened to see him drug into this lawsuit, but what he did was right."

Sworn declaration in lawsuit

Bowles' account of what happened in November 2014 emerged in a sweeping lawsuit brought by eight female former students against the university over how it handles sexual assault allegations against athletes.

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In the early hours one Sunday morning, he saw a friend crying and hyperventilating near the bushes in a parking lot. The female student told Bowles she had just been raped by two of his teammates, former UT students A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams. The men face separate rape trials scheduled for this summer. Through their attorneys, the two men have denied the allegations. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Bowles drove her home, where she was taken by ambulance to a local hospital.

In the locker room later that day, Bowles said he was confronted by teammate Curt Maggitt, who also had seen the woman in the parking lot, according to the lawsuit. Maggitt punched him in the mouth, Bowles said — a claim that Maggitt's lawyer has said is "a false statement."

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Bowles then called his coach to tell him what happened. Jones responded by saying he was disappointed in Bowles and that he had "betrayed the team.” Bowles, a sophomore at the time, “broke down and cried” after the phone call.

Jones later called Bowles back to apologize, but the next day, Bowles was again confronted by two teammates in a campus cafeteria before a coach intervened.

Bowles provided the account of events in a sworn declaration filed in federal court in Nashville, stating he was willing to testify in court.

Bowles' allegations were met with Jones' pledge to fight "false attacks on my character."

"The assertion that I ever attempted to belittle or demean a young man for taking action to help another person is absolutely false," Jones said in a statement. "To the contrary, I did all I could to assist the former student in question. During the course of the judicial process, campus officials, as well as the young man's own words, will clearly establish that I have done nothing wrong. I will fight all of these false attacks on my character, and I know that once this process has been completed, my reputation will be affirmed."

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Those allegations jeopardize the reputation Jones has built as taking swift action when players run afoul of the law. He has suspended players accused of sexual or physical assaults immediately after the allegations surface. On the field, Jones, in his fourth year as Tennessee’s coach, has positioned the Vols as the favorite to win the SEC East this season after rebuilding the program following Dooley’s departure.

Bowles told the Knoxville News Sentinel in February 2015 that he gave the woman a ride home on the night of the alleged incident, but that she did not mention she had been raped. He denied that he had been assaulted.

In social media and on sports radio shows, people have praised Bowles for helping the young woman.

Kathleen Redmond Brown, the founder of the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes, called Bowles "nothing short of a hero."

"His actions should have been celebrated," she said. "It's a very dysfunctional type of culture in athletics that says you don't rat out your teammate. It's the kind of culture that has led to lawsuits across the country. It says that you are not going to be rewarded for doing the right thing. Taking a woman who needs help to the hospital should not have to warrant a player having to wonder if the team would support him in that."

Two more women join University of Tennessee sexual assault lawsuit

Bowles' account in the lawsuit is used to bolster claims that the university fostered a culture that enabled sexual assaults by student-athletes, particularly football players who then escaped punishment — while women who step forward to report assaults are intimidated in some cases and ultimately forced to leave because of an on-campus disciplinary process that is drawn out and one-sided.

The university has not yet filed a formal legal response, but in statements has said that the university treats athletes the same as other students, supports victims of sexual assault and follows state law in its discipline of students accused of misconduct.

Bowles declined to be interviewed for this story, as did his father, Capt. Dexter Bowles of the Madison County Sheriff's Department.

Jackson sports standout

In Jackson, Bowles is a well-known sports standout, whose high school career on the football and basketball teams were closely covered by the local media.

"He was the biggest football star in Jackson with Division I scholarship offers and was popular around town," said Hunter Reed, a former classmate who is now a student at Mississippi State.

After his junior year, Bowles left the basketball team to focus on football. It was a tough decision, said his former Jackson Christian School basketball coach Rick Johnson, who is now an assistant coach at University School of Jackson.

Rick Johnson called Bowles a "happy-go-lucky, great Christian young man who was always polite, good student, said 'yes sir' and 'no sir.' He was everything you could want in a young man.

"He'd played for three years and we had a chance to be really good the next year (2012)," Rick Johnson said. "But he needed to focus on football that last year, which I understood because we all knew that was his first love and what he was going to do in college. He was up front with me, told me in person, and I could tell it was a tough decision for him to make. But because of how he handled it, I couldn't be mad at him about it."

A year later, Rick Johnson invited Bowles to his annual senior dinner for the team, "because he was still one of us."

Timeline: Sexual assault incidents at University of Tennessee

Bowles wasn't afraid of what teammates thought of him, said Jake Nichols, who was a freshman on the high school football team when Bowles was a senior. Nichols is now a student at Tennessee.

"He's the kind of person who will do what he feels is right no matter what others think of him," Nichols said.

At the end of one Monday practice at Jackson Christian, after the players had been running gassers — running from one end of the field to another — the coach told the team they'd had a good practice and he'd let them off with two sets of gassers instead of the usual four, Nichols said.

"But Drae stood up and said, no, we needed to keep getting better, so let's stay with four," Nichols said. "I'll admit I didn't like Drae a lot during that moment, and he probably got a lot of dirty looks when he got back to the locker room. But the fact he's willing to risk whether or not his teammates like him to make sure we're not cheating ourselves out of work and getting better shows he's going to do what he feels is right."

Devoted to faith

Bowles was devoted to his faith, his pastor and friends said.

He was involved with the youth group, helped the preschool ministry and was "a servant the way we're all called to be," his pastor said.

"Drae is good about sending random texts to people with Scripture in them, because he'll be sitting there reading his Bible, and somebody he knows ... he might need that verse or two he's sending," said Zack Fitzgerald, a lifelong friend as well as a teammate at Jackson Christian on both the basketball and football teams and is now a basketball player at Bethel University in McKenzie, Tenn.

Bowles received a scholarship offer less than two months after Dooley was hired in January 2010. His recruitment by the Vols and other high-profile programs in the SEC and other power conferences was a frequent topic of discussion among sports fans in Jackson.

His commitment to the team in July 2011 and eventual signing the following February made local headlines.

He quickly earned a reputation as one of the "most respectful" players on the field. But after arriving at Tennessee as one of the state’s top prospects, he never emerged as a star for the Vols. He played only on special teams, recording two tackles in 2013 and appearing in only two games in 2014 before transferring to Chattanooga after that season.

Bowles and his family are intensely private, friends said. And while he has thanked friends for supportive texts, he has said very little to them about what has happened.

"He's a piece in a giant chess match right now, but no matter what else happened, he was doing the right thing it sounds like," said Nichols, Bowles' high school teammate. "That's what everyone who knows Drae would expect, because it's who Drae is."

Reach Anita Wadhwani at 615-259-8092 or on Twitter @AnitaWadhwani. Reach Brandon Shields at 731-425-9751 or on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon. Matt Slovin and Nate Rau contributed.