Linebacker Aristotle Bowles living out a college football dream with No. 12 NC State

It was late in the fourth quarter of N.C. State’s game against Charleston Southern, the Pack holding a huge lead, when defensive coordinator Tony Gibson motioned to linebacker Aristotle Bowles.

“Be ready to roll, strap up,” Gibson said.

Ready? Bowles had been ready from when he first joined the Wolfpack program.

Bowles, known as Ari, is the kind of player every program needs and appreciates. He’s a walk-on who dutifully does the work — the “strain,” as the Pack likes to say — at practice and off the field, without wondering what kind of name, image and likeness (NIL) deal he might be able to secure or how much playing time he believes he deserves before considering the transfer portal.

Bowles first put on football pads and a helmet to play in a game at age 4. Sixteen years later, he took the field at Carter-Finley Stadium to compete for a nationally ranked Power Five team.

Bowles, a redshirt junior, got three snaps in the fourth quarter against Charleston Southern with the Wolfpack leading 55-3. But he made the most of it. He got a piece of a tackle for a loss, celebrating it with linebacker Clay Craddock, enough to draw a smile from Pack coach Dave Doeren on the sideline.

“It’s heart-warming and from a team standpoint I think it builds morale,” Doeren said last week. “In four years you might not get more snaps than that, you never know. It’s awesome for all those guys to see Ari Bowles go in there and Clay Craddock, you name it. It was fun and a lot of fun for them.”

Bowles was one of 83 players who got in the Charleston Southern game — thought to be the most for a Doeren team at N.C. State.

“It was just awesome, finally getting the opportunity to show all the hard work I’ve put in,” Bowles said last week. “You always get to see the 22 starters but a lot of guys on the back (of the roster) you don’t get to see. So having the opportunity to go out there with the people we grind with every day and be able to show what we work on is really awesome.”

Bowles was wearing a white No. 6 jersey during last week’s interview at the Close-King Indoor Facility. He had just come from practice, where he had served the part of Texas Tech linebacker Kosi Eldridge, No. 6 for the Red Raiders, as a member of the Pack’s scout team.

It was all a part of the pregame preparation, as the Wolfpack took a 27-14 victory at Carter-Finley Stadium to improve to 3-0. Bowles watched that one from what proved to be a very energetic sideline.

So why watch so much from the N.C. State sideline, when he could play more elsewhere? A passion for football, he said, and all that comes with it.

“It’s the camaraderie,” he said “You’ve got to love the people you work with, love the guys around you. And the opportunity to change lives and set an example for people, especially back home, who don’t get the opportunity you do.”

Bowles said his first football experience was with the Southwest Seminoles, a tiny-mite team in Charlotte. Next came the Steele Creek Seahawks, a Pop Warner team that Bowles would help coach later while in high school. Then, Southwest Middle and on to Olympic High in Charlotte.

College football first meant a year at Chowan, where he played linebacker and made the CIAA’s 2019 all-rookie team. The games were played before crowds of a few thousand fans in Garrison Stadium.

“In Murfreesboro, football is huge in that town,” he said. “I still text and call guys there. I tell them you don’t know how good you have it until you get up to a program like this, where the funding is all there, where you can get the size jerseys you want and the extra gloves on game day.”

Not to mention charter flights, nationally televised games and all the perks that come with Power Five football.

When Chowan’s 2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bowles entered the NCAA portal and posted a tweet: “Open for contact!”

N.C. State contacted him. So did Appalachian State and Charlotte, he said. He decided to join the Wolfpack program as a preferred walk-on in 2021.

His next tweet: “Turned my dreams into reality.”

As the Pack built the lead against Charleston Southern, Bowles was aware the call might come, that he might get on the field.

“Coach always says if you stay ready you don’t have to get ready,” Bowles said. “So when you get that opportunity you can be at the level you need to be.”

Soon, Gibson was looking at him. His opportunity had come.

Craddock pumped his right arm after the tackle for a loss — Bowles called it the “Drako,” the signature move of linebacker Drake Thomas. That had Doeren and Gibson grinning.

The only downer for Bowles was not having his parents at the game. They were in Charlotte, Ari saying his mom, who had to work Saturday, was “real upset” about not being there.

And about that first name. Ari’s mother, Jayme, has a Greek lineage, Ari said — thus Aristotle, which he calls cool.

“My brother is named Alexander for Alexander the Great,” he said.

This week, the No. 12 Wolfpack will go into the UConn game at Carter-Finley as a big favorite. Come the fourth quarter, depending on the situation, Bowles might have the same sensation he had a few weeks ago.

He’ll be ready to strap up and roll.