Washington Daily News establishes the ‘Rowe Award’

Every once in a while a special individual comes along graced with the ability to affect the lives of everyone he or she meets. In this case, that person emitted an aura of positivity that spurred confidence and success, on and off the basketball court.

TEACH girls basketball coach Greg Rowe was more than just a coach and athletic director. For those homeschooled children in the sports program and beyond, he was a mentor and, what TEACH volleyball and softball coach Lee Evans referred to as, a “second father figure.”

During games, Rowe would storm up and down the sidelines, yelling commands at his players like a drill sergeant, an action that likely stems back to his Navy roots. When it was game time – like flipping a switch – he would transform from a calming mentor to an aggressive competitor, and the result was victories, 18 this season and 24 in 2013. They were wins that not only bestowed confidence in his players, but also rallied a community around a team that had the odds stacked against it.

In terms of strategy, Rowe was a harbinger on ingenuity. Unlike well-funded private schools, TEACH had and has a very limited pool of athletes to chose from. Each player had to live in Beaufort County, be homeschooled and be enrolled in The Eastern Association of Christian Homeschoolers program. And no student can be denied a spot on a team.

Taylor Woolard, a sophomore “center” measuring in at just 5-foot-8, was the tallest person on Rowe’s roster. It should have been extremely difficult to stay competitive, considering virtually every team had a distinct height advantage over TEACH, but like a general cornered in the field of battle, Rowe devised a way – an alternative strategy of sorts – of taking team’s length out of the equation.

His players employed a relentless and tight full-court press, which took the opposition’s bigs out of the game and applied pressure on the guards to make a play. Most of the time, they didn’t.

Rowe tragically passed early Sunday morning. Coming from someone who had the privilege of meeting him just a handful of times, I found myself heartbroken. Truthfully, I was confused as to the reason why, considering the limited amount of words we exchanged, but it didn’t take me long to realize what this person meant to a community, myself included.

I logged on to my work email Monday morning and saw six messages with the subject, “Coach-of-the-Year,” one even from his daughter, Whitney. Each message talked, in detail, of what Rowe meant to them personally as a coach, father, mentor, spiritual leader and person. I humbly thumbed through them and hit the road to cover the Terra Ceia-Pungo softball game.

When I returned the following morning and logged on to my email, it suddenly all made sense. There, filling my inbox, were not one, not two but over 50 emails from people ranging from players to opposing coaches to students to churchgoers to family members, all expressing their appreciation for Rowe.

According to his daughter, Whitney, it was Rowe’s dream to someday be named Washington Daily News Coach-of-the-Year. Therefore, The Washington Daily News will be creating a new award, the Rowe Award, given to the coach that best displays Rowe’s father-like, caring and inspiring qualities off the court, as well as the coaching skills and intensity needed on the court to produce a successful team. This will not be exclusive to basketball, as all coaches, regardless of the sport or season, are capable of winning the honor. Starting next year, the award will be given out at the end of the academic year.