Fowler grew up in Rockford, Illinois[1] and State College, Pennsylvania where his father, Knox, was a theater professor at Penn State University.[3] When he was a teenager, his family moved back to Colorado and he graduated from General William J. Palmer High School in Colorado Springs in 1980.[4]
Fowler and Desmond Howard handling post-game coverage for College GameDay in 2009
Prior to joining ESPN, Fowler spent nearly two years at KCNC-TV, then the NBC affiliate in Denver, as a production assistant, a producer/writer and as a sports reporter. In 1984, he worked for several months at KMGH-TV in the same city as an intern in the sports department.
Fowler joined ESPN in July 1986 as the host/reporter of Scholastic Sports America, a stint which lasted two years. In 1988, he began serving as a college football sideline reporter for two seasons. While on the college football beat, Fowler conducted an exclusive interview with former star University of Oklahoma quarterback Charles Thompson, who was in prison at the time on drug charges.
He began as host of the College GameDay football road show in 1990 and expanded to ESPN's other Saturday college football segments in 1991.
After Charles Woodson won the 1997 Heisman Trophy over Tennessee'sPeyton Manning, Tennessee fans blamed ESPN and in particular, Fowler, who had emceed the award ceremony and handed the trophy to Woodson. Fowler received abuse from Tennessee fans (and he described the reaction as "trailer park frenzy" on a radio show), and GameDay avoided shooting on the Tennessee campus for several years that followed.[5]
Until 2006, he was also the lead studio host of College Basketball on ESPN. Fowler has also worked with ESPN's Summer X Games from 1995 to 2000 and the Winter X Games from 1998 to 2000 as well as horse racing broadcasts, including the Breeders Cup World Thoroughbred Championship on ESPN. In addition, he serves as the head play-by-play for tennis tournaments broadcast on ESPN, including Wimbledon, Australian Open, French Open and for the US Open being broadcast for the first year in 2009 on ESPN. In 2010, he anchored, along with Mike Tirico, ESPN's and ABC's month-long coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In 2020, Fowler announced the first game of the Monday Night Football Kickoff Week doubleheader alongside Kirk Herbstreit.[7] They later called the early game of ESPN's Week 18 Saturday doubleheader a year later. After Herbstreit signed with Prime Video to call Thursday Night Football, Fowler was replaced by Steve Levy on the #2 team for the 2022 season, but was re-inserted into that role a year later. He now works with Louis Riddick, Dan Orlovsky, and Laura Rutledge on weeks when ESPN has two games.
He was the host of the Seattle Kraken's expansion draft coverage which was the first ESPN hockey event with the NHL since 2004. During the telecast he would make an regrettable error in calling the Carolina Hurricanes the “Carolina Panthers”. This led to both teams Twitter accounts switching logos mocking him.
Along with fellow College Gameday hosts Lee Corso and Desmond Howard, in 2007 Fowler broadcast College Gameday from Williams College for its homecoming game against Amherst College, the first and only time College Gameday has covered a Division III game.[8] Fowler has called the experience, and Williams' tradition of "The Walk" up Spring Street following a victory over Amherst, "one of the best traditions in college football." Fowler joined the Williams football players in St. Pierre barbershop following the game to celebrate Williams' victory.[9]
On February 22, 2024, Fowler announced on X that he will be a play-by-play voice on the upcoming EA Sports College Football 25, set for a summer 2024 release.[10]
Personal life
Fowler is married to former fitness model/instructor Jennifer Dempster, who appeared on ESPN in the 1990s on the show BodyShaping.[11]
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