After a week of uncertainty and turmoil surrounding the Lumpkin County High School girls basketball team, perhaps the biggest surprise of the saga came on Monday as the news broke that David Dowse, who resigned as the team’s head coach eight days earlier, would return to finish the season as head coach of the Indians.
LCHS Principal Billy Kirk sees it as the only way the story could end.
“It all pointed right back to Coach Dowse,” Kirk said about his discussions with Athletic Director Steve Horton on who should be the team’s interim coach. “We met this morning for about an hour and after our meeting this morning, Coach Dowse and I came to an agreement that he would finish the season in the best interest of the girls, the team, the school, community and everybody. We think it’s the best thing for those nine girls on our basketball team….We have a very special group of girls and anything short of Coach Dowse coaching them is not good enough for me.”
After meeting with the coach, Kirk, Horton and Dowse met with the team to share the news, which Kirk said excited the players.
“I was proud of the maturity of our girls and proud of how it went today,” he said. “We had a parent meeting this evening and informed the parents. Coach Dowse ran practice today...and they didn’t miss a beat.”
Kirk said that while everyone may not agree with the move to bring the coach back, he’s trying to do what is best for the nine students that make up the team.
“I think everybody involved believes this is the right decision for the girls….At the end of the day, the girls are what matters. We always try to put our students first in our decisions to best serve them and in order to best serve them, the right man to lead that team is David Dowse,” he said.
When asked for comment, Dowse declined, adding that the LCHS administration would be handling “all initial media questions.”
With Dowse at the helm last season, the team finished with a 25-5 record including the school’s first Region Championship in 40 years and first ever state semifinals berth. Kirk said he has no doubts that Dowse is the man for the job.
“In this situation, he built this program over the last five years,” he said. “Really and truly, it’s kind of like the rising of a Phoenix. This program was in the ashes with four wins, five wins, three wins, two wins year in and year out….Over the last five years he and his program and his players have transformed girls basketball.”
Now after what Kirk called “a bump in the road,” he says the team is refocused on the goals it set out to achieve at the beginning of the season.
“The goals have not changed one bit,” Kirk said. “We want to compete for a region championship and do everything we can to adhere to the theme that the girls and Coach Dowse came up with, Play 32. There’s 32 games to the state championship and that’s where our goals are and that is why the decision was made by myself and our athletic director with some counsel from our district office that this was absolutely the best option for girls basketball at Lumpkin County.
Game five of the team’s season is set for Thursday, Dec. 2 at Union County.
