COVINGTON, GA -- Alcovy has hired a new athletic director to succeed recently appointed Alcovy principal Kristopher Williams who had served in his former role since 2014.
On Monday, Thomas Lowe was tabbed as the Alcovy’s new athletic director and assistant principal, effective immediately.
Lowe has a Bachelor’s degree in public health and a Master’s in special education. He also has a specialist degree in curriculum and instruction.
The hire is another change that in a long line of shifts that have occurred recently with Alcovy athletics, with the recent overhaul of the Tigers’ football coaching staff being the most recent.
Lowe will look to shift the dynamics of the athletic programs as the school looks to gain some traction against its local contemporaries in Newton and Eastside.
“One of the things that I’ve noticed is that they’re trying to turn the athletic programs around,” Lowe said. “[We] want to get to a point where we have a winning tradition. We want to have ethics, of course, but once the ethics are out of the way we want to get into the business of winning and preparing students for [their] next evolution. My goal is to develop solid student-athletes that will be prepared once they leave Alcovy.”
The Atlanta native and graduate of Southwest Dekalb High is no stranger to competition as he coached basketball at Stephenson High in Stone Mountain, and before his hire at Alcovy, he was the assistant band director and drumline instructor at Martin Luther King High in Lithonia.
Lowe says that, to him, success in his dual roles will come by seeing to it that the athletes have marketability athletically as well academically.
He has plans to focus on all of the athletic programs at the school while finding ways to support the teachers simultaneously.
“My experience in coaching is of course, the better the student you are to go along with athletic abilities, the more opportunities you will have in the future,” Lowe said. “I’ve talked to several college coaches -- especially when I was coaching tennis and basketball – and some of the things they were saying, the more marketable the student is, the more opportunities we can offer.”
The career educator said he wants to build a cohesive program of comprehensive success on the foundation of consistency as opposed to merely allowing one sport to lead the way.
He’ll look to help bolster an Alcovy athletics department that has seen new head coaching hires in football, baseball, softball and wrestling over the last two years.
“I’d rather build a solid program than just to build a solid team,” Lowe said. “A solid team, you’re good for a year, but when you build a solid program, that’s how you build that longevity. And I’ve been a part of schools that have had successful programs over the years.”
