After leading the team in receiving yards and yards per catch in his sophomore year, redshirt junior Donald Bowens was poised to have a break out year in the 2008 season. But after suffering a career-threatening back injury right before the 2008 season, the team lost Bowens for the entire year. On the road to recovery, Bowens suffered another lapse this past winter, when he had to undergo knee surgery.

Finally healthy, Bowens is back and ready to help improve the already top scoring offense in the ACC.

“It was great to be back out there with the guys,” Bowens said. “I know I’m truly blessed to be here. I just felt happy to be there with everybody else. It’s been a long time since I’ve been back.”

With Bowens playing his first football game in over a year, coach Tom O’Brien wanted to make sure Bowens got some playing time in the Gardner-Webb game so he could get reintroduced to the game and everything that goes with it.

Bowens ended the game with two catches for seventeen yards.

“We wanted to get him on the field just so he could get back into a football game and hopefully touch the ball a couple of times,” O’Brien said. “We called some passes to be thrown specifically to him just so he could catch it and get tackled and get the feel of playing college football again.”

Bowens admits it was a long and grueling struggle to get back to playing and at points he would have to ask himself what kept him going and working to get back onto the field again.

“I really just kept faith in God,” Bowens said. “I trusted in God and I knew that I’d come back soon enough. And I just stayed motivated, the team helped me out and I came back and I’m here.”

On his way back to recovery, Bowens described the grueling process it took to get back to form. He put in many hours of rehab in order to get healthy.

“The hardest thing about the recovery was probably just staying up late at night and waking up early to perform the grinding the rehab, and it was tough,” Bowens said. “So just staying motivated and bouncing back was my main goal.”

With the absence of a steady quarterback during Bowen’s freshman and sophomore years, Bowens experienced a quarterback carousel, catching passes from mutiple quarterbacks, including Daniel Evans, Harrison Beck, Marcus Stone and Justin Burke.

But with the emergence of quarterback Russell Wilson, a proven and experienced quarterback, Bowens finally has a quarterback that is talented and can get him the ball on a consistent basis.

“I’m really looking forward to playing with Russell Wilson,” Bowens said. “He’s a great quarterback, and a great leader.”

Even though Bowens was ecstatic about getting back on the field, he admits the best thing about finally getting back was being with the team again.

“It’s been a long time, so just running out onto the field was the best,” Bowens said. “From the start, just leaving College Inn, and getting on the bus, I just felt like back on the team, so it’s great to be back.”