David Dowse was ready to be a football coach, and he traversed that path the first seven years of his coaching career.
When a new job took him from DeKalb County to Gwinnett, he stepped on a basketball sideline as a coach for the first time. The girls program at McConnell Middle School was short-staffed, and he agreed to be its coach for “only” a season. That season altered his course, and he has been on the same path since.
“After that one year I loved it,” Dowse said during an interview last Wednesday. “I gave up football and started working my way up the ladder to become a head girls basketball coach.”
Three hundred sixty-two wins later, he has arrived in Ellijay.
Dowse, 57, was named the Gilmer High Lady Cats’ head coach Friday, March 15. He has a 362-187 career record in 20 years leading varsity programs and is wrapping up his 35th year in education. Along with wife Shelly, they have three adult children and one granddaughter.
“Gilmer County Schools are excited to name David Dowse as our next head coach,” said county athletic director Paul Standard. “He comes with a tremendous track record of basketball success.
“What makes him a tremendous hire for Gilmer County athletics and our school community, is he’s a great man. Every stop he’s made, he’s left an indelible mark at that school. His success is a product of his process. It is a product of how he goes about teaching and coaching young people.”
Dowse was at Class A Mount Vernon last season, but the Mustangs did not have enough players at the upper school to field a varsity team.
He arrived in Sandy Springs after spending six seasons at Lumpkin County High School. The Indians appeared in three Final Fours, played in consecutive state championships and won the Class 3A title in 2022. LCHS also captured a pair of region titles under his watch.
He was named coach of the year for Class 3A by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association in 2022.
Dowse was at McIntosh High from 2006-2017, with a one-year hiatus for the 2013-14 season when his “children were seniors.” In 10 seasons, McIntosh reached the state tournament six times.
Dowse received his first taste of coaching high school basketball at Grayson. That was his next stop after McConnell, and he was Grayson’s junior varsity coach for two seasons. He took over the varsity program in 2002 and led the Rams to three state tournament appearances in four years.
“I came to Lumpkin to retire, or so I thought,” Dowse said. “After six years there, I did one year as a retiree at a private school. Now, I’m back where I think I belong, and where I’m most comfortable, which is in north Georgia. I knew I was going to end up there sooner or later.
“This reminds me a lot of taking the job at Lumpkin. It’s a similar job, situation and colors, even. The values I have, and what I know of basketball, what I believe to be the values of Ellijay, play into that toughness. I think my teams play with the things I value in coaching. We’ll play an old-school brand of basketball. It’s a hard-nosed, tough brand of basketball. I think that fits well with some of the kids I will coach and have coached in north Georgia.”
Dowse discussed the mentality he demands from his players. “Relationships, toughness and accountability” will be pillars of which the Lady Cats’ program is built upon.
“Those three tenets cover a whole lot of ground,” Dowse said. “When I come in, I’ll have to prove I’m worthy of their trust. They’re going to see I’m going to ask a whole lot of them. I’m going to ask for a lot of their time and a whole lot of effort. They’ll see from me the exact same. I’m not going to ask them to be in the gym when I’m not.
“Through that, I hope we’re able to build that relationship and then build that culture of toughness and accountability . . . accountability to oneself, to one another and to the program. When you have that, you have a solid culture. Then it goes from a coach-led team to a player-led team, and ultimately, that’s the goal.”
While Dowse referenced an old-school approach, he said his teams will shoot “plenty of threes.” He watched GHS play once in person this past season but has yet to delve into personnel and closely examine the team.
“You have to look at your roster and look at your talent and build a system around them,” Dowse said. “I’ve always been a flex guy (offensively), and we run it from a lot of different sets. I’ve kind of become more of a match-up zone guy over the years (defensively). That served us well at Lumpkin and at McIntosh.
“We’ll find out in June how that works out with them. We’ve always shot a lot of threes. I like to shoot the three-ball, but we’ve also got to develop some shooters. We may have some, but you can never have too many.”
Dowse plans to meet with current assistants, players and parents in the coming days as a meet and greet has been scheduled for those in fifth through 11th grade.