James "Jim" D. Gowing

Coach [1943 - 1970]

Track - Soccer

James “Jim” Gowing joined the Tabor Academy faculty as an English teacher in 1943. A James Joyce scholar and a remarkable multi-tasker, Jim Gowing did it all: Varsity Track and Soccer Coach, Chair of the English Department, Dean of Studies, Director of Admissions, and Director of College Counseling. He was often revered by the faculty and students for his wit and humor. As a coach, Gowing was devoted to his student athletes in the sports of soccer and track. While many today still remember Coach Gowing for his success on the soccer field, his heart belonged to track, the sport in which he himself had excelled as a student athlete. Jim Gowing was a world-class half-miler who set records in 1939 at his alma mater, Amherst College.

Despite track being his true passion, Coach Gowing’s legacy at Tabor lives on in soccer. In 1948, Gowing was instrumental in the formation of the Gummere Private School Soccer League, one of the founding pillars of today’s Independent School League (ISL). The schools included Belmont Hill, Brooks, Browne & Nichols, Governor Dummer, Milton, Nobles, St. Mark’s, and Tabor. This league was a dream come true for Coach Gowing as he had been trying to organize the region’s first independent school soccer league for many years. With the formation of this league, Coach Gowing encouraged these teams and their coaches to foster grit, determination, and perseverance in their student athletes.

His time, effort, and patience elevated Tabor soccer to a higher level, a level where the team could compete with top peer schools in the region. In 1955, the Tabor Varsity Soccer Team captured its first Gummere League title, winning the Gummere Cup. While this was the first ever championship in Tabor soccer, Coach Gowing’s teams went on to win the Gummere Cup again in 1956, 1957, 1961, 1964, 1966, 1971, and 1973. 

By the mid-1970s, Tabor Academy left the Independent School League and this piece of Coach Gowing’s legacy became a part of Tabor Athletics’ history. However, after years of petitioning to rejoin the league, in 2016 Tabor Academy was offered a place in the ISL. It is fitting that the 2017-2018 academic school year marks not only Tabor’s return to the ISL, but Coach Jim Gowing’s induction into the Tabor Academy Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2017.