Mr. and Mrs. Coach: East Laurens power couple keeping up with fast pace of busy sports family, coaching double-duty

Contrary to what you might assume, the pace doesn’t actually slow down during the summer for a pair of East Laurens High School coaches who lead – in addition to three successful athletic programs – likely Laurens County’s busiest sports household.

In fact, this point on the calendar is perhaps as hectic as it gets for Dwayne and Danielle Lowther in their roles as muli-sport coaches, and parents of current multi-sport athletes. 

“For us, it picks up,” Dwayne said. 

The two – in a unique arrangement – join forces as assistant and head coach for the Falcon softball team each fall before splitting up in charge of the school’s respective boys and girls basketball squads during the winter. 

They’re not the first or the only husband-wife coaching tandem in Laurens County history, but definitely one of the most involved you’re going to find at any school, and also the most dedicated, as well. 

The late Carl Tyson, a fellow teacher and loyal Eastside sports supporter, would often refer to the couple as Mr. and Mrs. Coach – nicknames that were fitting given their sense of synonymity with East Laurens athletics, and inseparability from a set of jobs that keep both their noses to the grindstone. 

And that’s especially true over summer break, when – unlike during the school year when the two sports seasons come one at a time – Dwayne and Danielle are concentrating on both at once as they try to get their athletes conditioned and prepared for the upcoming campaigns. 

In the time between those workouts and scrimmage games, both also follow two of their three daughters as they compete on the travel softball circuit and – somehow – also figure out how to fit in a little bit of rest and relaxation. 

But that rarely comes before the week of the Fourth, which is annually set aside by the GHSA as a dead period off-limits to athletic activities. 

“During the month of June, I don’t have any down time,” Danielle said. “In June and July, especially June, we’re balancing both sports.” 

Of their three kids, two are still in high school. The oldest, De’Asia, is a recent college graduate, off a successful career playing softball at South Carolina State. De’Anna, in the middle, is a rising senior, and the youngest, De’Andrea, will be a junior. Both, who play multiple sports each and may have some college athletic aspirations as well, are also right in the thick of that summer softball and basketball grind alongside their parents. 

Since first taking on the substantial coaching workload about four years ago, Dwayne and Danielle – together – have become quite adept at handling the year-round juggling act that is keeping their bases covered at school, holding down home court and, recently, upholding some high standards of excellence in each of their sports as well.

“We’re trying to be parents, and coaching,” Dwayne said. “A lot of times, we’re gone on the weekends, working throughout the day and balancing school, travel and our life… It’s a grind, but we’re just trying to put (the kids) in a position where they can be successful… not just our kids, but all of the kids.” 

Hustle and bustle… 

Believe it or not, summer break – from a coach’s perspective – can make the regimented, cut-and-dry schedule of the average school day seem like a breeze. 

Though it affords far more hours to work with than the few that are left to spare before and after daily classes during the fall, winter and spring, there’s more going on simultaneously as coaches in many different sports look to make the most of the offseason for helping their athletes get better. 

It can be nightmarish – for the Lowthers – in the number of plates that have to be kept spinning at once between workouts involved with either sport, and others that the same basketball and softball athletes may also be involved in. 

Mornings are generally dedicated to the gender-specific activities of softball and football, whose practices take place between 8 and 11 a.m. 

Then, the multi-sporters cross over to basketball, with boys working out from 11:30 through 1:30, and girls returning after a lunch break to go from then to 3:30. 

Swinging a scrimmage game, in the morning or afternoon, can complicate matters, though more for the dual-sport coaches than their players. 

When doubled up on time commitments, one will have to stay behind to cover practices while the other takes a team to compete out of or across town. 

“Sometimes we have to divide and conquer,” Dwayne said. “That’s even with our children, if they’re going different places.” 

Though each of the sports are technically free to use as much of the summer as they want, schools tend to place greater emphasis on basketball in the month of June, which is when a majority of scrimmage and camp opportunities are available, then leaving July training between the gym and weightroom for athletes to complete independently. 

For July, which is when fall sports move onto the front burner, the Lowthers are primarily in softball mode. 

“Softball, in June, we usually just practice, practice, practice, as much as we can early in the morning, then in July we’ll start the scrimmage games,” Dwayne said. 

Cooperation and understanding between all of East’s team sports coaches has helped turn the big-picture schedule, across campus, into a pretty fine-tuned machine when it comes to timing, and workload. 

“We have to learn how to balance the athletes as well, especially the athletes that are doing dual sports,” Dwayne said. “When they’re out there doing rigorous football stuff, and they come in here, I have to kind of balance it out where we don’t do as much running or what not, but we do work on skill sets. Because they’ve already done the running. I don’t want to wear them out, and open them up to injury.” 

Dwayne typically will align his summer schedule with the football team, and its general practice of giving players Mondays off. 

Danielle front-loads most of her softball and basketball practices to early in the week, so that players of the former sport are free to travel later on to weekend showcase events that both her daughters are frequently involved in as well.

“On Thursdays and Fridays, most of our girls are into travel ball and stuff, so we give them those days off,” she said. “And that’s when we become parents.” 

Once school starts back, the itinerary gets pretty simple to put together: Class during the day, practice and games in the afternoon. 

In softball, the coaching staff also carries the responsibility of field prep – dragging, lining and watering the infield to get it ready for play – that adds some extra time demands each day. 

Both transition to basketball almost immediately once the season wraps up, and that season – contingent on postseason success – extends into anywhere from late February to early March. 

Then, at long last, comes a brief chance for them to catch their breath. 

“We’ve got about three weeks,” Danielle said. 

Spring brings some downtime for the two coaches, both that’s likely the busiest for both daughters. 

De’Anna plays soccer, and both run track, while also fitting in some travel softball that runs from then through summer. 

They also have other local relatives playing sports at multiple levels that they like to attend games of as well. 

Squeezing all the different priorities together into a cohesive family schedule gets tough at times, but for all the inconveniences of their coaching arrangement… the jobs do come with some perks in that administrators have given both plenty of latitude to play anything they need to by ear.  

“We’re our own boss, in a sense,” Danielle said. “So we can control our own schedule, with us and our time between me and him. We’ll take those little one or two days where we just go and be us.” 

‘Opposites attract’… 

When it comes to that rare free time, Dwayne and Danielle have very different preferences on how to spend it. 

And most of what their shared interests and preferred leisure activities have in common is that they involve time together with the family. 

The breaks tend to be measured in hours more often than days. But when one of them comes along, the first part is usually spent doing little to nothing at home, in an effort to “recharge the batteries.” 

“That first day, I’m just home, just relax and enjoy home,” Dwayne said. “Then, once we do that, then we can start venturing into other things.” 

Danielle, who considers herself much more of an introvert, never minds some alone time. 

“They say opposites attract,” she said. “He’s a social butterfly and I’m the one that’s kind of laid back. When I have some time away from people, I’m having that time by myself.” 

What to do to pass some time around the house? 

“When I was younger, I used to read all the time,” Danielle said. “Now, I still read sports stuff, but if I’m at home, I’ve got my feet propped up and I’m looking at some cooking channels, some home makeover channels, House Hunters, all that kind of stuff. That’s the kind of stuff I like, and I’m watching some sports. And sometimes, the TV’s watching me.” 

After a good nap, Dwayne enjoys getting out of the house to do some fishing, or go see a movie. His tastes in film are pretty wide-ranging, but anything with some action or historical significance is a particular draw. 

“I like to watch old movies, I like to watch life, different genres of action movies,” he said. “I’m a superhero fanatic. I love the Avengers, stuff like that.” 

Danielle is not nearly as much of a cinema buff, and usually needs a fast-paced plot to stay engaged. If what’s showing doesn’t pique her curiosity, he’ll sometimes go on his own. 

“I’m not a movie person,” Danielle said. “I go to movies with him…” 

“And she’ll be asleep in 10 minutes,” Dwayne interrupted, with a laugh. 

“But I just say, if you want to spend money for me to go and sleep, hey, I’m good with that,” she continued. 

“So I keep plenty of Coke Zero and popcorn, so the caffeine keeps her up and it might grab her interest,” Dwayne said. 

As for activities together, both are a big fan of short getaways on the weekends, when they have time to slip off to a nearby destination like Savannah or Charleston. 

They also like to catch sporting events when the opportunity presents. 

A few years ago, they used the first of the summer’s two “dead weeks” in early June to fly out to Oklahoma City to see part of the Women’s College World Series. 

Both have also been known to carry their teams to attend nearby college basketball matchups during the season. 

Traveling to cool places is right up the alley of Dwayne, who’s big on seeing sights and landmarks with unique backstories. 

“I’m a history nut,” Dwayne said. “I like to see a lot of historic stuff. I look at the History Channel all the time. I’m a history teacher, so I like to go visit the places that I teach.” 

“I’m a little different,” Danielle said. “I just go because he likes to go. He starts talking about the history stuff, my brain starts going somewhere else. But that’s something he likes, so I try to spend that time with him as well. We’ll go to the movies, we’ll go just be with each other.” 

Spring break and long holiday weekends are great opportunities to fit in quick excursions. 

A great hack they’ve discovered is turning travel ball or AAU tournaments into a mini-vacation with some side-outings and day-trips in between games. 

One of those recently took them to Denver – which Dwayne considers one of the coolest places he’s visited lately. 

But these occasions, by and large, present a chance simply to kick back and enjoy some time off from coaching. 

“For the most part, we like to just sit back and watch and be parents,” Dwayne said.  

Long vacations can be difficult to swing. In the past, their extended family has coordinated some big ones with its 30-plus members converging on a beach in Florida. 

But those types of trips require that everyone’s summer schedules line up, unlike this year, 

Both also enjoy heading off on a good cruise. 

“I think cruises are the coolest because everybody doesn’t have to be on the same agenda,” Dwayne said. “You can do different stuff and go to different activities on the cruise. That’s pretty cool to me, not having to be on a certain timeframe… Vacations can be exhausting, when somebody’s got a whole schedule of your day planned out, and I just want to relax.” 

Frequently, traveling with the family can also simply relocate many of the everyday responsibilities from home that both would like a break from entirely. 

“Spending the time where you don’t have to get up and cook, you don’t have to clean, the different things like that, that’s the kind of stuff that I enjoy, where you don’t have to do anything,” Danielle said. 

Whether it’s for several days or several hours, both insist on a full retreat from anything tied to the daily routine when they get the chance to unwind. 

“We try to make sure we don’t see anybody (we know), that it’s just us,” Danielle said. “But we do let our hair down We have fun. We’re humans, too.” 

A match made in… Huddle House 

The Lowthers, interestingly enough, have roots in all three parts of the county. 

Dwayne is a product of the city and Dublin High School (class of 1989). Danielle (formerly Burley, a ’95 grad) came up on the Eastside, but spent most of her early teaching and coaching years at West Laurens Middle School. 

Both were successful athletes in their sports, Dwayne in basketball for the Irish, and then for two years at Brewton-Parker College. Danielle played prep softball and basketball, then continued to pursue softball at the next level. 

“When I graduated, I was torn between whether or not I wanted to go play softball or basketball at the next level, and I chose softball,” she said.

She played with Middle Georgia College for a handful of seasons, then transferred to Georgia Southern before an unfortunate knee injury ended her playing career. 

The two, who were about six years apart in age, became acquainted on nights their separate friend groups happened to be eating at the former Huddle House on North Jefferson Street at the same time, circa 1998. 

From when they officially met, it was about six months before they actually began dating. 

Dwayne was the first to express interest, while Danielle wasn’t initially receptive. But she would ultimately make the first move. 

“He was there and I was there,” Danielle said. “He gave me his number, I finally called him.” 

“She wouldn’t give me her number, but I gave her mine, and eventually, she broke down,” Dwayne recalled. “It took a long time. When she called me, I was like, ‘Who are you?’ It came out of the blue.” 

The two would get married in 2006, at that point well into careers that would lead both to full-time education, and similar roles at East Laurens High. 

But at that point, it’s safe to say neither envisioned getting to exactly where they are now. 

Dwayne got his first job working as a parapro at the now-defunct Heartland Academy – not far from that old Huddle House – under longtime Laurens County Schools administrator Al Manning. 

He’d remain there for roughly 12 years before transitioning to Crossroads Alternative School while he attended classes locally to finish his incomplete college degree. 

After earning that teaching certification, he’d be hired by East Laurens Middle, where he completed his student teaching, and worked there for 13 years ahead of the more recent move to the high school, where he just completed year 4. 

Danielle completed her bachelor’s degree in Statesboro, and after earning a Masters from Troy, came back to her hometown to begin work with the Department of Family and Children’s Services. There, she was tasked with carrying out the court-ordered removal of children from homes where they were being abused or neglected in a job that, needless to say, she didn’t find very enjoyable or fulfilling. 

“I was taking parents’ kids, so that was a tough thing” she said. 

The chance to get into education came when West Laurens Middle School principal George Knight called her about an opening. 

That first job would lead to some early coaching experience in softball and basketball that shaped her future aspirations. 

“I wanted to be a head coach, and I wanted to coach both basketball and softball,” she said. “I was working to get myself in the position where I could do both of them.” 

Both Dwayne and Danielle have “gone through the ranks” of rec ball, Little League, middle school and high school in the journey to their current roles. 

Softball would come first for each. And as middle school head coaches early on, they’d also go against each other in some MGMSAA region clashes that got a bit interesting. 

“We were actually rivals,” Dwayne said. “She started out as an assistant, but then we wound up coaching against each other, which was quite entertaining.” 

But dreams of doubling up on the hardcourt would come to fruition for both. 

Dwayne had basketball coaching in his blood, with multiple family members already (or soon to be) in the profession, and a great model and mentor in much older brother Clinton Lowther, who had a long and successful run as head girls coach across town at Dublin before retiring well over a decade ago. 

Dwayne would ultimately become East Laurens Middle School’s head boys coach, and win a region title the year before he applied and was selected to take over the high school boys program. 

It was around the same time that then-East Laurens principal O.J. Hall also called up Danielle for a job on the Eastside, and the chance to become the Falcons’ head softball coach. 

There was no basketball opportunity available at the time, except as backfill for Dwayne as head coach at the middle school. And, despite the challenge of relating to middle school boys, she was happy to accept the opportunity to get her foot in the door. 

“It was a no-brainer,” Danielle said. “I played with boys growing up. It was me vs. boys, coming to my house or going to Warnock Park playing basketball. So I said, this is right up my alley, I can do this.” 

Two years later, longtime ELHS girls head coach Ramona Edwards stepped aside, and Danielle was tapped to replace her. 

Both see a lot of divine guidance in the path that’s led them to where they are now, and a lot of important people along the way who mentored or believed in them 

“It’s been quite a journey, but I’m thankful,” Dwayne said. “I’ve seen where we were. I’ve seen the direction that we’re going. When God puts people around you that are going to support you, not only support you, but they’re going to be honest about what you’re doing, it helps you improve from year to year.” 

Uphill battles… 

Both coaches had their work cut out for them in the dual-sport workload as much as the specific challenges related to each individual team. 

While the East Laurens girls basketball program, in an exception, was coming off a region championship season, the Lady Falcons would be starting mostly from square 1 when Danielle took over with an inexperienced roster the next year. 

Both the other programs also faced imminent rebuilds, the boys hoops team in the worst spot coming off a winless season. 

Dwayne accepted the job with some trepidation, recognizing the steepness of a challenging road back to relevance that he rightly anticipated would involve a rough first few years. 

“I just kind of weathered the storm through all of that,” he said. 

The key to the rebuild was establishing a healthy feeder system at lower levels of the program, which began with Danielle in charge of the middle school team and brother-in-law Christopher Burley (now an assistant on his varsity staff) starting up a private AAU squad to help begin developing players as early as fourth and fifth grade. 

It took some time, but the investments would pay dividends. 

“We were in the trenches, we were putting the work,” Dwayne said. “We knew it was going to be a couple of years before we started actually winning.” 

The wins came slowly, just one the first season, then a combined 10 over the next three. But by the time a class of players had made its way through the whole progression, the Falcons started to see some consistent success, beginning with an eight-win campaign the freshman year of the players who graduated earlier this past season with winning records in their next three, and accomplishments – a quarterfinal run in 2024 and Final Four appearance this past season – that are well-documented. 

“When I look back at it, with where we are now, it’s like two different worlds,” Dwayne said. 

The Falcons are now in a position to reload, rather than rebuild, after losing a handful of their top starters. 

Several underclassmen, who providentially got a chance to cut their teeth on the court thanks to some midseason injuries to seniors Ty Snead and Rashund Washington Jr. that were blessings in disguise, have them set to continue contending at a high level. 

“I’ve already foreseen having a better season coming this next year, even though we lost some pretty good players,” Dwayne said. “I guess it’s funny how the Lord works. He already had us building during the season.” 

For Danielle, the building process was just as steady, and the recent accomplishments even more monumental. 

East Laurens softball had never won a region championship before teams she built from similar humble beginnings (and a couple of lean seasons between 2020 and 2021 that laid the foundation for winning ones ever since) chalked up back-to-back 2-High A crowns in ’23 and ’24, getting to the state tournament in Columbus for the first time ever back in October. 

The girls hoops program has been on a steady rise as well, following a similar trajectory from a losing record her first year at the helm to progressively better seasons for a core of four-year starters whose careers peaked with an outstanding year, region runner-up finish and quarterfinal run in 2024, and this past spring’s region title, en route to a first-ever berth in the GHSA Final Four. 

While the success has been hard-earned, it’s come with an overwhelming sense of being undeserved. 

“The Lord has been blessing me,” Danielle said. “I just sit back and watch him work, because if you really knew my story, I’ve got one. He’s been blessing me over the years to put me in positions, and I just can’t explain it… I just thank him every day for that.” 

Both faced their share of criticism, and a little bit of it in the form of self-doubt. 

Neither let the chatter get under their skin.  

“I’ve been successful in the 20 years I’ve been coaching, but even with that, there are some times when you question, hey, can you coach two sports? Are you able to coach two major sports? There was always doubt in regard to can you do this? Can you do that?” Danielle said. “But we’re built for it. The Lord’s already blessed me with it. We’ve been doing it since day 1, 20 years ago. Even in high school, I was doing the same thing. The skepticism, the criticism, all this stuff comes with the territory. We’ve been able to deal with and handle it.” 

‘Here for a reason’…

Vacation – and a trip back out to Colorado this week – was in sight for both coaches as they sat for this conversation in the East Laurens gym, after a day of fun at Southern Pines Water Park to ceremonially close out their teams’ June activities. 

Most of the boys basketball hay was already in the barn, after a busy month of practice, and scrimmages both across town and at multiple Atlanta-area tournaments. The girls hoops team still had one set of crosstown games to play the following afternoon, before a much-needed break.

Neither Dwayne nor Danielle has ever been busier than the two jobs have kept them over the past month. But both couldn’t be having a better time doing what they’re doing. 

“It’s probably been one of the most amazing summers,” Dwayne said, noting how much he’s been encouraged by the positive stuff he’s overheard from his players – signs of their chemistry, togetherness and a hunger to get better as a group. 

“It’s a beautiful thing to watch,” he said. 

Experiences like that remind both of why they chose this profession, and also how the Lord’s prepared both for the platform and impact they have in their present jobs. 

“I was put here for a reason,” Danielle said. “We’re out here for the kids.” 

And lest the worthy goals of chasing wins and championships become too big, it also points back to their inherent charge of simply instilling the important values their families and friends through the years have passed along to them in new generations of student athletes. 

“Not only are we coaches, but we’re mentors, we’re role models,” Dwayne said. “Some kids haven’t seen better, so they’re not going to do better. That’s where my mom and dad gave us that foundation. Everybody hasn’t grown up the way you’ve grown up. 

“Everybody’s not going to win a state championship, and every year, you’re not going to win a state championship. But what are you doing to impact the lives of these young people? That’s the most important thing that I feel that’s satisfying and gratifying to me.”