Lake betting on an alumnus to get the job done

It is not as if Bowen hasn’t been around for a while. He never really left.

“I got the freshman job — had two successful years with those guys, You know, those were both good classes, the new year’s sophomore and junior classes. I helped out with the varsity, and then they offered it to me and I jumped on it,” Bowen said. “I went to Lake since I was in kindergarten on up, and I’ve been involved with it, so I’m excited about it.”

As a player, Bowen and Brad Deventhal led Lake to the district finals at Ohio Northern University. Deventhal still holds school records for single season assists (165) and career assists (282). Playing for the late Tim Smith and Jim Bartosky, the Flyers were contenders competing against larger schools in the Northern Lakes League.

“We were always solid,” Bowen said. “Our basketball team was always second or third in the league, and that’s when we played in the NLL. We had some competitive teams.”

Bowen, a three-sport athlete at Lake, has demonstrated in other ways that he cares about Lake athletics. When the district threatened to cut sports because of budget issues, resulting in athletes leaving for other schools, Bowen got on board to help rebuild the youth programs.

“I think it’s very important that you start with the youth and build a program and get those kids excited to come up,” Bowen said.

Lake and the other SLL schools will continue its fifth and sixth grade program, and Bowen is planning to start an in-house program for the younger grades. Tornado damage to the high school is already causing some issues, though.

“What I’m going to do is for second grade through fourth grade, I’m going to form a three-on-three league in house on Saturday mornings for them,” Bowen said. “It will be a little tougher now, because obviously for gym time we’re on the move, but we’ll figure something out for them.”

Bowen has already started working with his varsity players. The Ohio High School Athletic Association allows basketball coaches to spend 10 days with their players in the off-season, and Bowen took full advantage of it. Because he didn’t have a gym, Bowen had to make other arrangements.

“The kids are excited and they are working pretty hard. Obviously, with the tornado they seem to have come together a little bit more and been working pretty hard,” Bowen said.

“We went pretty hard in June. At Central Catholic, a buddy of mine, Mike Couch, who is a principal there, I called him up on a Friday and about five minutes later he said, ‘We’ll go ahead. We’ll give you a gym.’ So we went there for our 10 days, and we play in a summer league over at Steve Mix, which has been going pretty well, too.”

Next winter, Lake will play home games at Owens Community College and practice at St. Jerome’s School in Walbridge. He is looking forward to having Owens as a home facility.

“That will be nice. Hopefully, they will give us a few practice dates just so the kids can get used to playing there. That’s pretty awesome of them to go ahead and do that,” Bowen said.

He knows communication could be difficult, too, with the Lake high school students attending classes at an Owens building on Tracy Road in Northwood.

“I know the kids are there, right on Owens campus, and they’ve got to come home for that. I imagine we’ll have to bus to Owens to meet there,” Bowen said. “Basically, what I’ve done this summer I’ve sent a text to a couple seniors and distributed out to the rest of the players, which is good, because it gives them some leadership responsibilities.”

Bowen’s varsity assistant will be Joel Jackson, a Lake grad who played with Jim Robinson, Jr. in 1999 when the Flyers went 19-2. His junior varsity coach is Clyde Ickes, who led Gibsonburg to the Division IV regional finals.

“I’ve got a nice staff that I just hired in. I’m real excited about them. I’ve got a lot of young kids who have the energy and the passion, with some experience, too, with some older guys,” Bowen said.

His freshman coach is Gary Chenevey; the eighth grade coach is Johnny Kontak; and the seventh grade coach is Vic Rettig. Kontak is the son of former Genoa girls basketball coach Tom Kontak.

This will be Lake’s final year competing in the SLL. In 2011-12, Lake joins Fostoria, Rossford, Eastwood, Genoa, Woodmore, Otsego, and Elmwood in the recently formed Northern Buckeye Conference.

“Fostoria is going to be really competitive — they always are,” Bowen said. “Rossford’s basketball program has been very good the past couple years.”

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