“Excited” and “blessed” are how Dowell Green described the emotions he felt on Friday when Caledonia announced his hiring as the school’s next head boys basketball coach.
With 13 years of coaching experience at the middle school and high-school level, Green is slated to take the reins of the Cavaliers in hopes of turning the program into a consistent winning squad.
“I’m really looking forward to the opportunity,” he said. “I think there are so many great things about Caledonia and I’m blessed and fortunate to be the one selected to run the program.”
Green replaces Mike Jenkins, who led the team for the 2025-2026 season that ended 8-18 overall with a 71-39 loss to Holmes County Central in the first round of the Class 5A playoffs. Green has made coaching stops at Ridgeland, Ocean Springs and Winona Christian School. Defense is what Green said the Cavs will hang their hat on under his tutelage, along with toughness and discipline.
“We’re going to be a defense-first program,” he said. ” … We love to get after it on the defensive end of the floor, we are going to hang our hats there, then let that be what drives us. Let defense turn into offense. … The people have been great. Since I’ve taken the job I’ve felt so welcome. You can feel the passion that they have and the support that they put into their athletics. The facilities are phenomenal, and I’m really looking forward to getting there and getting involved with the school and getting to meet all the players and getting around and meeting people in the community and getting things going.”
The program has seen spurts of recent success, like its 19-9 finish to the 2023-2024 season that fizzled out in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs in a 55-44 loss to Itawamba Agricultural. In the 2024-2025 campaign, Caledonia took a 20-8 record into the playoffs and fell 77-53 to Leake Central in the first round. In order to get past that first-round barrier, Green said his team will have to reach a new level of toughness.
“We are going to be tough,” Green said. “ We are going to be hard-nosed. We are not going to have any quit in us. We are going to get after it for four full quarters. We are never going to stop, we are never going to quit. We are going to be tough and we are going to be disciplined.”
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