When he was a freshman, Jackson Fowler entered Providence as a two-sport athlete ready to attack on the football field and on the basketball court.
Volleyball? It was off the radar despite his performance in grade school.
“I played volleyball when I was in seventh grade and I was the only seventh grader on the team,” Fowler said. “I was excited. But COVID hit the next year and it shut down the season.”
With a year away from volleyball, the sport was out of sight, out of mind.
That is, until fellow freshman Sean Dovin convinced the 6-foot-3 Fowler, a left-handed right-side hitter, to come out for volleyball in the spring.
“I knew he wasn’t going to do a spring sport and I had a few classes with him,” Dovin said of Fowler. “We weren’t a great volleyball school, so I tried to get all of the athletic kids who weren’t playing spring sports to play.
“Jackson is a lefty — a big lefty — and it didn’t take much convincing.”
Now, volleyball is the only sport for Fowler, who rememberes that conversation.
“It changed everything,” Fowler said. “I was talked into playing again. After that season, it stuck with me. I started club the next year, and I’ve been playing volleyball ever since.”
Fowler, a rising senior, helped his club team win the 17-Elite division in the AAU Boys Junior National Championships in Orlando. Fowler was named the tournament’s MVP.
Providence’s Hayden Hill, Lincoln-Way Central’s Braeden Fawcett, Homewood-Flossmoor’s Caleb Madden and Lincoln-Way East’s Gavin Olson were also on the UNO team coached by Providence alum Tim Doughney.
UNO opened the tournament losing its first two matches but went on a big-time roll thanks in part to the play of Fowler.
“I got a lot of kills for my team, but I provided defense and made some great plays as well,” he said. “Since I was one of the team captains, it’s my job to make sure everyone is on the same page so that way we could all compete as one cohesive unit.”
The road to the national championship for UNO featured a 21-25, 25-23, 15-13 semifinal nail-biter over 630, which featured Dovin on the other side of the net.
Dovin insisted there was no trash talking between the two friends during the intense match to determine which team was going to the championship game.
“We were just having fun,” Dovin said.
Providence, which finished 20-17 in the spring, also hopes to have more fun in 2025. Fowler contributed 176 kills and 117 digs last season for the Celtics.
“Jackson is an amazing athlete who has the ability to take over a match through his offense or his blocking,” Providence coach Lee Rucinski said. “His play this summer just goes to show how hard he has been working on his game.
“He has an incredible ceiling, and I can’t wait to see just how great he will become.”
For Providence, the program’s heyday was 2007 through 2011 when the Celtics won four regional titles and took fourth in the state in 2008. They have not won a postseason title since 2011.
But hope springs eternal for next year.
“We should be better — we bring a lot more to the table,” Fowler said. “We have players who did well in club and some sophomores becoming juniors. We’re pushing for a better playoff run.”
Fowler, who had steady college interest before the summer club season, said his MVP award brought even more attention. Still, he said he’s not close to making any decisions yet.
Dovin, meanwhile, could not have imagined Fowler enjoying this much success when he convinced him to play the sport as a freshman.
“He improved very quickly,” Dovin said of Fowler. “He was used to playing all of these sports and he was athletic and very coachable, and he’s getting a lot better.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
