To find his dad’s messages, Trent McDowell unlocks his phone and enters a search ... I love you bud.
The texts instantly appear at the top of the screen. More than eight months have passed since the last one arrived. Other conversations have been swiped away and forgotten. That one stays.
Chad McDowell, who died of cancer in March at age 50, was a fixture at Solanco. The varsity girls basketball coach. The JV softball coach. The PA announcer for Friday night football. The game manager at some field somewhere seemingly every day.
Trent is playing his first season without his dad watching and encouraging him. Every time he puts on his Millersville helmet and shoulder pads, he’s reminded of the lessons that steered him through childhood.
Millersville kicker Trent McDowell, a Solanco grad, boots an extra point against West Chester during a game in September.
Those messages bring tears to his eyes. They bring his dad closer for a fleeting moment. They say what Chad would say if he was still here.
“I always look back and read them,” Trent said. “As emotional as it gets before games, it does bring me a lot of motivation.”
I love you bud.
Trent’s dad is the only one who sent him those words in that order.
Trent was a four-sport athlete at Solanco before he became Millersville’s kicker. The sophomore goes through the same pregame ritual every Saturday. He finds a spot. He prays. He talks to his dad.
Then he kisses the tattoo on his left forearm, a blue ribbon with a basketball and the years his dad was alive, before pointing toward the sky.
“Just to know that he’s with me,” Trent said. “To honor him every game.”
JEFF REINHART | Sports WriterUntil you make it
One of the most memorable field goal attempts from Trent McDowell’s junior season at Solanco took place at Millersville. It was 33 yards against Penn Manor. It missed.
But the kick isn’t what sticks in Trent’s mind. It’s what followed.
Chad pulled Trent out of bed the following morning. The two drove 25 minutes from their home in Quarryville and the ball was placed on that same spot on the Biemesderfer Stadium turf.
“He forced me to come up here and kick until I made it,” Trent said. “He said, ‘You need to get it perfect and be great.’ I couldn’t say no. I got in the car.”
Trent doesn’t remember exactly how many tries it took. Five. Maybe six. Attempts fell short. They sailed wide. The frustration grew.
Chad chased down the ball and Trent kept going. The exercise lasted until lunch time. Until Trent made the kick look automatic.
Trent McDowell playing soccer for Solanco against Donegal.
“That’s Chad being a coach and a dad at the same time,” said Anthony Hall, Solanco’s athletic director and Chad’s close friend. “He was not going to allow Trent to wallow on the failure of something. He was going to push Trent through that situation so if it ever came up again it was not going to be the same result.”
Soccer, basketball and track were Trent’s sports when he started high school. He gave kicking a try as a sophomore and began taking it seriously about a year later.
Trent kicked for Clarion last fall. He transferred to PSAC rival Millersville in the spring to be closer to his family.
Basketball is the sport that connected father and son the most. They talked about it constantly. When he was younger, Trent was always at his dad’s games.
“If I wasn’t on the court with him, it’d be a surprise,” Trent said. “I traveled with him. I was by his side. I have so many pictures of me sitting on the bench. Just me with a whole bunch of older guys.”
Trent was a talented soccer player at center midfield and center back. He was a blue-collar basketball player who provided tough defense and rebounds.
Football, however, became his future.
He arrived at Millersville with no assurances of a job and has earned the primary kicking role. He has made 7-of-9 attempts with all but one of them being between 35 and 39 yards.
Some were taken near the spot where he missed three years ago. Now, with the help of his dad, Trent puts those kicks through the uprights.
“This year has been tough,” Trent said. “I know he’s not in the stands. But I know he’s looking over me.”
College sweethearts
Jen McDowell has attended each of Millersville’s first 10 games. She has yet to see one of her son’s field goals. At least while he was taking it.
Trent’s mom can’t bring herself to watch. She puts her head down, listens to the crowd’s reaction and then quickly checks the livestream, which always lags behind the action, to see the result.
Chad, on the other hand, saw every kick repeatedly. He pulled out his iPad, pressed record and then replayed the video to study what went right or wrong.
That was the dynamic for all of Trent’s freshman season. Mom and dad made the long car trips to Clarion’s home games and road games to Greensburg or Erie or some other stadium on the other side of the state.
Chad was undergoing his cancer treatments every other week back then. He still left early Saturday mornings, stayed overnight and made the trek home.
“He was determined to fight it,” Jen said of her husband. “He was determined not to let it take away anything. He would do everything he could to be there.”
Millersville football player Trent McDowell, center, with sister, Ally, and mom, Jen.
Chad and Jen were college sweethearts. They met early in their freshman year at Lock Haven as members of the band. Chad played snare drum. Jen twirled the baton. They started dating in November 1992 and settled in Quarryville after graduation.
Both became teachers and coaches. Sports consumed the family’s days, and especially their weekends. They were always racing off to a game. Ally, their oldest, became a softball standout. Trent earned 11 varsity letters.
“That was our lives for years,” Jen said. “The kids didn’t know anything different. We went from one sport to another. It worked for us.”
The family’s presence is still felt at the Golden Mules’ football games. Jen takes the tickets. Ally, now an emergency room nurse, works in the ambulance that sits near the field. Trent comes back and offers to help in any way he can. One game he operated the scoreboard clock.
Chad, who grew up in Altoona, quickly made the Solanco area his adopted home. He lived there for more than 25 years.
Jen is grateful Chad was with their children until they became adults. This season has been a difficult adjustment. Jen usually sits with her parents at games. Part of her expects Chad’s iPad to start recording.
“There are so many times I turn to say something to him,” Jen said. “He’d be there every time. It’s just different now.”
Pennies from heaven
The first penny was found by Vicki Sellers, a fellow teacher at Solanco, on her way into Chad’s viewing. She gave it to the McDowell family.
It became a symbol. A reminder that Chad was still with them. The McDowells started to notice pennies whenever they were forgotten on the ground. Rather than walk past, they stopped and picked them up.
At Solanco’s first football game this season, Ally saw one on the track. She saw another one when her dad was inducted into Solanco’s Hall of Fame.
“The other morning I was walking out of work,” Ally said. “There was one sitting outside the emergency department. I was like, ‘That was dad with me all night.’”
Ally and Chad were connected through softball. Father and daughter. Coach and player. That’s how it was on almost every team from coach pitch through travel and high school.
Chad McDowell during a Solanco girls basketball game in 2019.
Chad kept the scorebook for the Cyclones, the Kryptonite and the Lady Stormers. He played catch. He threw batting practice. He hit fly balls. Whatever Ally needed.
Even when Ally went to play at Widener, an hour-plus drive from southern Lancaster County to Chester, her dad was there. All the time.
“I can probably count on one hand how many games he missed in my college career,” Ally said.
Ally grew to appreciate the endless hours they spent together on the diamond.
“He knew you better than anyone out there,” she said. “He could tell when you were off or when you needed to work on something. He was always my No. 1 supporter.”
Sometimes, when Ally is on an ambulance call, she’ll cross paths with someone who knew her dad. “You’re Chad’s daughter?” They’ll ask. Even during a health emergency they try to make that connection.
The McDowells bought a jar with “Pennies from heaven” written on it. About 20 pennies have been placed inside so far. There’s room for many more.
Ally occasionally finds herself looking down at the pavement in case one has fallen from someone’s hand or pocket.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “We find them everywhere.”
Feeling a void
Solanco’s holiday basketball tournament has been named after Chad McDowell. A scholarship fund in his memory has raised more than $4,000.
Hall said Chad was essentially an assistant athletic director. He was the game manager at so many events it took multiple people to replace him.
Chad’s number is still stored in Hall’s contacts. He searches for it when he wants to find out what’s going on at a junior high game before realizing he has to keep scrolling to call someone else.
“We became good friends very quickly,” Hall said. “That’s been my struggle. Every day I come into the office, I feel his void.”
There are several messages in that long chain that Trent likes to revisit the most. He looked for one. When he found it, he slid his phone across the table.
You are the best SON a dad could ever ask for …the text began.
“I picture him saying it to me,” Trent said. “I’m hearing it in his voice.”
Trent put down his phone. It went dark. He knows the messages will be there whenever he needs them.
Trent McDowell puts up a shot during the Solanco Holiday Tournament. The event has been renamed after Chad McDowell.
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