By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
In a 1997 first-round playoff series, Rowan County’s American Legion team pummeled South Rowan 18-0 and 18-0 in the first two games played at Newman Park.
Rowan shortstop Michael Lowman hit a home run in each of those blowouts ó the first two blasts of his Legion career. He also drove in seven runs, but a dozen years later, all is forgiven.
South hired Lowman this week to coach its team. He replaces David Wright, who directed three straight over-achieving seasons.
“Once we found out Michael was available and had interest, he was the No. 1 guy on our list,” South athletic officer Mike Fisher said. “And once we sat down with Michael everyone was partial to him. He’s a familiar name, a familiar face.”
Lowman is a perfectly logical choice in the sense that he’s the most qualified young coach around.
He’ll turn 30 in November. He lugs no baggage and has made few enemies. If you don’t like Lowman, you probably don’t like Santa Claus, Wonder Woman and tax refunds.
At the same time, it’s a choice that will make Rowan fans gasp, sort of like when the New York Mets hired Yogi Berra as manager.
Many will always perceive Lowman as a Rowan County guy, just as they’ll always picture Yogi as a Yankee. It’ll take a month to adjust to seeing Lowman with an “S” on his cap, but there’s no reason to doubt he’ll do a fine job.
Bob Lowman, Michael’s father, is Rowan County’s team manager. Michael is currently employed by Catawba as an assistant coach. His boss is Jim Gantt, who coaches both Catawba and the Rowan Legion team.
“Will it be a little weird coming back to Newman Park as the opponent ó sure it will,” Lowman said. “But when this job was offered, I sat down with Coach Gantt, and he gave me his blessing. As far as my dad, he told me I was a grown man who could make a decision and he would support me either way.”Lowman leaves family ties to go south, but he reunites with extended family. Danny Crosby, South Rowan High athletics director, the guy who takes care of the baseball field 24-7, is “Uncle Danny” to Lowman.
Lowman is also on friendly terms with two of the key figures who have kept South in the American Legion business the last 13 years ó Gary Ritchie, the barbecue baron, and Ernie Faw, the program’s first coach.
Everyone is enthusiastic about Lowman, including Carson coach Chris Cauble. That’s important because Carson’s young talent will have a huge impact on South’s future success.
Lowman’s fan club also includes Wright.
“Michael’s an ideal choice, a very good baseball man,” Wright said.
Wright coaches West Rowan High and was primarily coaching players in the summer who were supplied by two NPC rivals. That contributed to volatile situations, but Fisher emphasized Wright wasn’t dumped.
“It was David’s decision, and he had the job until he didn’t want it,” Fisher said. “We appreciate that he came to us early enough with his decision that we still had time to go out and find a quality guy.”
The job Wright did on the field was hard to criticize. He coached 62 wins in three years and was 48-31 with 16 playoff victories the last two summers.
South became good enough that it had a realistic chance to get to the state tournament in 2007. One more out and a team led by Daniel Wagner and Rudy Brown would’ve qualified for Legion baseball’s version of the Big Dance.
“Give David a lot of credit,” Fisher said. “He got an awful lot out of those kids and won a lot of ballgames.”
Wright cited time and family considerations and job opportunities as reasons for stepping aside. He’ll be involved with the State Games for several more summers. He’s also been offered a post with Impact Baseball, a showcase organization. He’ll do some coaching with the elite Dirtbags team and will run camps to identify college prospects.
It’s relatively lucrative work, but it won’t require anything close to the nightly grind of Legion baseball.
“I enjoyed my years with South, the people are first-class, and they treated me awesome,” said Wright, a South Rowan High grad. “As far as Legion jobs, South has to rank right up there among the best.”
Wright relinquishes the reins to a former Mustang who’s used to winning.
Lowman played at East Rowan during the Jeff Safrit Era when the Mustangs were annually winning 20-plus games.
Lowman was 5-foot-7, maybe 140 pounds, and his physical tools weren’t special, but he was an instinctive ballplayer with a world-class work ethic.
He played jayvee in 1995 when East had a state-championship varsity. To the amazement of his father, he went out for the Legion team and survived all the cuts.
And before you knew it, he was starting for coach Jim DeHart at second base.
He was a starter on the 1996 Rowan squad that went to the World Series. By his senior year of high school, Lowman was a terror. In the summer of ’98, he hit .392 with 12 homers and 70 RBIs, second-highest total in Rowan Legion history.
Lowman remains in the all-time top 10 at Rowan in career RBIs (5th, 142), runs (10th, 134) and hits (6th, 1910).
He excelled in college as an All-Big South infielder at High Point. He helped former East Rowan and South coach Allen Wilson with South’s Legion team in 2000 and made a good impression.
After serving as a graduate assistant at High Point two years, Lowman returned home to assist at Catawba and also coached Rowan’s Junior Legion team.
He returned to High Point in 2008 as a full-time assistant, but a tough year led to coaching changes. Now he’s back at Catawba, but this week he got an unexpected offer ó and he accepted.
“I have a lot of experience, I’ve learned things from working with some great coaches, and I wouldn’t take this job if I didn’t think we could be successful,” Lowman said. “I’m ready for the challenge.”
South and Carson have good talent between them. There also are players who are having success as college freshmen ó Ryan Bostian, Matt Ingold and Caleb Shore ó who are still eligible to play Legion.
“You look around, and the young talent in that community is good,” Lowman said. “A key is getting all the talented kids to come out for Legion from both schools. You never know, but I hope we can get them all.”