Dickey adds Southeast hoops duties

Published 11:41 pm Friday, August 6, 2010

Jake Dickey made an impression from the start when he took over Southeast Whitfield’s volleyball program four years ago, leading the Lady Raiders to their first winning season and a runner-up finish in the area tournament in 2006.

Now he’s hoping to do the same for Southeast’s boys basketball program, where stability is needed as much as success.

Dickey has been hired to replace Josh Carter, who left Southeast in late July after one season as coach of the Raiders. They went 4-20 in 2009-10 and lost in the opening round of the Sub-region 6A-3A tournament.

Dickey will be the fifth leader of the program in six seasons, a run that has included one-year stints for Todd Cottrell, Joey Bryson and Carter.

“From the start I’m going to focus on developing the players. That’s one of my goals as a coach,” said the 31-year-old Dickey, who will also keep his volleyball job. “I’m not a yeller and screamer by nature. I believe that if you can teach the kids how to play the game, it takes a lot of yelling out of it.

“And I want to make sure they conduct themselves with respect on and off the court and take care of their classes. I’ll stay on top of them. I’m real big on making sure they know what’s expected of them and holding them to a higher standard.”

Carter, a Southeast alum who was an assistant under Bryson during the 2008-09 season, returned to a coaching position at Bremen High after having no success selling his home in Bremen, Southeast athletic director Scott Ramsey said.

“That’s the thing, we’ve never hired anybody who we thought was going to leave and I don’t know that they thought they would leave,” Ramsey said. “Things just happen and it’s just been a little bit of bad luck.”

But Ramsey is optimistic that Dickey’s development of ties to Southeast and the community in his time at the school are a good sign the door may finally stop revolving for Raiders basketball.

“I think he’s pretty committed,” Ramsey said. “I think this is his home.”

Ramsey and new Southeast principal Brian Satterfield selected Dickey from four interviewees for the position from a pool of 12 applicants. The position was open to candidates from outside the school system, Ramsey said, and a feedback committee (made up of two administrators, two students, two booster club officers and two parents) was also part of the process.

In addition to his belief that Dickey will stick with the Raiders, Ramsey said the coach distinguished himself with his success as a head coach in volleyball and a background in basketball.

“A lot of times you take coaches who have had success as an assistant, but you don’t know how they will be as a head coach,” Ramsey said. “Here’s an opportunity to get someone who’s been successful.”

Dickey has been that, leading the Lady Raiders to winning records each year he’s been in charge — he was a volleyball assistant for one season before taking over — and two state tournament appearances, including a trip to the second round of the 2009 Class 3A bracket.

His career record in volleyball is 132-86. In 2004, his lone season at Apalachee and first year as a head coach, he went 27-16 and was named Area 8-3A Coach of the Year after leading the Lady Wildcats, who had also never had a winning season, to a top-five ranking and a state quarterfinals appearance. He has also coached Choo Choo City, a Chattanooga-based Junior Olympic volleyball program, the past two years.

A native of San Diego, Dickey grew up playing both basketball and volleyball in California but first became a head coach in the latter sport more by circumstance and opportunity than design, he said.

“I was so successful I got labeled more as a volleyball coach than a basketball coach,” Dickey said, “but when I first started coaching I was all about basketball.”

Dickey played one year of basketball at Okaloosa-Walton Community College and was later a student assistant at Faulkner University in Montogmery, Ala., from 1999-2001. In those two seasons, the Eagles finished among the final eight teams in the NAIA tournament and won a national championship.

He was an assistant boys basketball coach for two years at White County under Cottrell and one year at Apalachee before coming to Southeast.

Eager to get to work on basketball, Dickey said he’ll swap his morning triathlon training routine for individual workouts with the Raiders starting next week. He expects at least a half dozen upperclassmen in the program based on last year’s roster and a good group of freshmen from the middle school feeder programs — and he believes he can make a difference for Southeast basketball.

“We could have a competitive team this year,” Dickey said. “That’s what I’m telling the players. We’ll make it competitive and see what happens from there. If I can get them to compete and do what I want them to do, we could be very successful this year.”

After “bouncing around” growing up and early in his coaching career, Dickey said he and his family have grown comfortable in Dalton.

“We’re excited,” he said. “When I got this opportunity, I said it could be the one that keeps me here for a long time.”