GHSF Daily asked Georgia head coaches to answer these four questions. We'll report from a different head coach each day.
John Bowen, Hephzibah
1. Who is/was the most influential person in your coaching career? "These are actually two basketball guys. The first is Duke Madsen at Riverside Military Academy. He taught me about organization and attention to detail. The other is the legendary Graham Woodell. He taught me about keeping things as simple as possible." [Woodell won more than 700 games as a head coach, primarily at Cave Spring High in Floyd County, where he won a state title in 1967. He coached at Riverside in the 1990s before retiring.]
2. Who is the best Georgia player you ever faced? "There are so many great ones and almost too many to list. I'm going to go with a sleeper here, the Blasingames. I believe it was Omar and Vince and maybe a third one, Alrenzo, from Crawford County in the mid-1990s. Man, they were tough, and that whole team was fast and had a heck of a run with coach Tony Byram." [Crawford County reached the Class A semifinals in the Georgia Dome in 1996 and 1997.]
3. What is the best team you ever faced as a coach? "Probably Washington County this week!"
4. If you were Gary Phillips, the new head of the GHSA, what would be the first rule that you would try to change? "This is two parts and deals with spring/preaseason. A. Allow for a true spring game versus other schools. I think this would put excitement back in spring football as well as possibly serving as a fundraiser for some schools. B. Allow for intersquad practices like the GISA does and the NFL. These could replace one of the preseason scrimmages. So much can be done with these without it turning into essentially an 11th or 12th game before the playoffs even begin."
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