Looking to fill the void left by Jose Morales’ departure to another school after the conclusion of the most recent baseball season, West Lowndes announced last week it has turned to a local veteran coach Lee Davis to take command of the team.
Davis, who boasts 30 years of baseball coaching experience, joins the team from Caledonia, where he spent the last two years coaching its middle-school team. Davis has had stops at Starkville Academy and Heritage Academy and said he always heard good things about West Lowndes through the coaching grapevine and from some of his other coaching friends, like former West Lowndes coaches Rusty Greene and Todd Stanley. So when he found out West Lowndes was looking for a baseball coach, he said he knew it was an opportunity he had to apply for.
“I’ve been around those guys and they had a lot of success out here and they tell me, ‘That was some of the funnest years of their lives,’ so I’m excited about being out here working the kids and teaching them and getting them ready for the season,” Davis told The Dispatch. “(I) expect to be competitive in some games.”
While Greene and Stanely led the Panthers to some good years on the diamond, the recent seasons haven’t quite panned out the same. Davis inherits a team that went a combined 2-28 the last two years with a winless streak in Region 1-4A games. He said getting the Panthers back to being a force in baseball will take some time, but that’s part of the reason he took the job.
“(It’s) just a chance to build it from scratch,” he explained. “We haven’t had very much success the last couple of years, but we can only go up. We’ve got a nice indoor facility, if we can get some pitchers and catchers throwing some balls and strikes, a lot of strikes, and play a little defense, we will be ahead of the game.”
But Davis and West Lowndes aren’t starting from scratch. The Panthers bring back some players with experience that Davis said will be key to getting them off the ground.
“I have a couple of seniors, a junior and the rest of them are ninth and 10th-graders and those young guys have been quality players, been playing a lot, so that experience will be good for them starting off the season,” he said. “I’m excited about that. … A couple of those kids are going to be good little players, so we will play them young and (they’ll) take their lumps, and hopefully in a year or two down the road we will be really competitive.”
While at West Lowndes, Davis will also teach world history and an ACT prep class, and he’s already been awed by what he’s seen from his students.
“I’m really impressed by how they conduct themselves,” Davis said. “They’re doing really well and they’re working really hard, so I’m excited about that.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
