Cecil "Brick" Fowler - Football, Track - Coach

Year Inducted: 1977

Everybody who knows him calls him “Brick”.  He was born in Huntington, England in 1902.  With his parents, he came to the United States in 1911 and the family settled near Greenville, Michigan.  He attended School in Greenville and then entered Western State Teacher’s College at Kalamazoo from where he was graduated in 1926.  While at Western he played football and ran on the track team.

Fowler was head coach at St. Clair High School during 1926, 1927, and 1928 where his 1928 football team was the undefeated State Class C Champion.  He enjoyed such great success at St. Clair that he was offered the coaching job at Port Huron High School for football and basketball.

His 1937 football team at Port Huron High was undefeated and recognized as the State Class A Champion.  Fowler coached basketball teams, won 3 district and eleven regional championships.  In 12 seasons of football, his teams won 82 games while losing only 18.  His basketball record was 313 games won and 99 lost.  Brick Fowler retired in 1967 after serving 41 years in High School Athletics.  On April 21, 1961, the City of Port Huron celebrated “Brick Fowler Day” and 1100 citizens attended a testimonial banquet.

This popular fellow has received state wide recognition for his ability and achievements:

  1. He has been a City Playground Director since 1929.
  2. Together with Paul Smarks, he helped organize the Michigan High School Coaches Association in 1955.
  3. Acted as MHSCA Treasurer from 1955 to 1972.
  4. He has been a member of the MHSCA Board of Directors from 1955 to the present time.
  5. Active in the MHSCA expansion from 17 members in 1955 to the present 3000 dues paying members.
  6. Brick was the recipient of the United States Freedom Foundation Award in 1961.
  7. He received the State Fair Teacher’s Day Award in 1962.
  8. He was in the first group taken into the MHSCA’s Hall of Fame in 1957.

There have been many fine coaches at Port Huron High School and no one can pick the greatest.  But Brick Fowler was the greatest of all in the way of human appeal.  He had an incisive manner of speech that electrified those around him.  During his coaching days the high pitch of his voice was as spontaneous as it was effective.  You never could misunderstand Brick Fowler.  As a Coach and Athletic Director he made a great imprint on athletics at Port Huron High School.  He had an ability to get better than 100% performance from all of his players and he had the respect and loyalty of every team member from the least important substitute to the brightest star.  He helped develop hundreds of young boys into fine gentlemen.

As a coach he was a teaching perfectionist, a practicing psychologist and a competitor who functioned best in the heat of a tough game.  He loved his players, and the players knowing it, loved him in return.

He built hundreds of monuments in Port Huron – Brick’s boys are everywhere.

Image