Dowd coaching tradition continues at Wheat Ridge High School

WHEAT RIDGE — Filling the coaching shoes of Tommy Dowd would be an impossible task for anyone, including his son.

“It will always be hard. I’m never going to fill those shoes,” Vince Dowd said of stepping in as the head coach for Wheat Ridge High School’s boys and girls golf and boys basketball programs. “I have learned that I just need to be myself. I can’t try to be my Dad. I’ve just go to coach the way that I do.”

Tommy Dowd spent nearly three decades coaching at Wheat Ridge. At times coaching four sports when he an assistant coach for the Farmers’ football team when they won the Class 4A state championship in 2006 and 2008. 

Tommy was the defensive coordinator for Wheat Ridge on the gridiron from 2007 to 2016.

Wheat Ridge named its basketball court ‘Tommy Dowd Court’ just last year, a few seasons after Vince took over the head coaching duties and Tommy stepped into an assistant coaching position under his son.

“The coaching side with my Dad is the relationships. It’s not the things that he says to me all the time it’s the things that I’ve watched him do and what he still does,” Vince said of his Dad that retired from full-time teaching at Wheat Ridge a few years ago. “I watch how he handles kids, parents and people in the community.”

Those relationships is something that Vince has been able to build himself. He has been around Wheat Ridge High School since he was a 7-year-old. Vince graduated from Wheat Ridge in 2008 after being a multi-sport athlete and went to Colorado State University. 

Vince spent two years of working at Prospect Valley Elementary School as a paraprofessional. This year, he started his 10th year as a special education teacher (SPED) at Wheat Ridge High School. 

“I always knew that I wanted to work with kids and help kids,” Vince said. 

In college at Colorado State University he had an experience as a caregiver with a paraplegic student. That is what helped put Vince on the path of being a special education teacher. 

“I’ve always been around it since I was young,” Vince said of teaching and coaching. “Pretty early on I knew it was something I wanted to do.”

A back injury his freshman football season actually jump-started his coaching career. 

“I sat out a full year of football and just kind of helped my Dad,” Vince said. “He was coaching our freshman football team at the time.”

Coaching is defintely in the Dowd Family blood. Along with Tommy and Vince, Tommy’s brother John was a longtime assistant coach in several sports at Wheat Ridge. 

“Know your team and know your players,” Tommy said when it comes to the best advice he has given his son when it comes to coaching. “Lots of guys have basketball knowledge. Know your players and how to coach them. Know what they are capable of. Knowing your team and what they are capable of will win you games.”

Vince said his mother Lynda was a big influence on his teaching career. Lynda was a reading teacher for 35 years.

Staying at Wheat Ridge is something that Vince cherishes.

“I would love to be at Wheat Ridge forever,” Vince said. “It’s all I’ve known. I’ve been at Wheat Ridge since I was 7 years old. I love the community and the kids we get at Wheat Ridge. It is unique.”

Vince recalls when he was a kid and on a family trip to Disney World in Florida a complete stranger stopped and offered Tommy $100 for his Wheat Ridge football shirt right off his back.

“When you are winning at Wheat Ridge the is nothing else like it,” Vince said.

It is also unique that Vince is tackling coaching multiple sports, just like his father. Wheat Ridge just wrapped up the boys golf season Monday, Sept. 30, at the Class 3A Region 2 tournament at Fox Hollow Golf Course.

The importance of solid assistant coaches under Vince has allowed him to be a head coach for multiple sports at Wheat Ridge.

“I have really good assistant coaches. Dominic Cross played for us and graduated from Wheat Ridge in 2021. I really lean on him during the golf season,” Vince said. “He gets our guys in the gym. He is working with them all the time and does stuff with our youth program.”

Basketball season officially starts in just over a month.

“When golf is over we’ll be full-steam ahead with basketball,” Vince said.

NOTE: National Coaches Day is Oct. 6. President Richard Nixon signed a proclamation declaring Oct. 6 as National Coaches Day in 1972 — ‘Coaches are highly qualified teachers — in highly specialized fields. But more than that, they are friends and counselors who help instill in their players important attitudes that will serve them all their lives.’