Thursday, April 18, 2024–9:48 a.m.
-News Release-
Dawson Wehunt started playing basketball when he was three years old. Since then, he’s helped teams win recreation championships, state high school championships, and college conference championships as well as serving time as an assistant high school coach.
Now Wehunt, who lives, breathes, and sleeps the sport, takes over the reins as the new boys basketball coach for Rome High School.
“I am ecstatic. It’s kind of a moment I’ve been hoping for for a long time. I’m ready to get started with the kids over the summer, with the staff, and also the middle school kids,” he says. “My goal is to make basketball important and make it something kids want to be a part of, coaches want to be a part of and the community wants to be a part of.”
Rome’s boy’s team didn’t reach the state playoffs this season but has been a region contender and playoff participant over the past few years. Wehunts says he hopes to not only make the Wolves a contender but a team that is tough to play.
“My goal is that you want to win your last game. You want to win every tournament. You want to win the region championship. You want to be the state champion. I don’t want to say that’s the expectation right now, but you always want to be striving to win a gold ball or silver ball,” Wehunt says. “We want to make basketball very important and make it something that people in our community want to be around.”
Wehunt draws from a lot of basketball knowledge. He played at Buford High School, helping bring those Wolves to a state title his senior year. He then played at Berry College helping the Vikings win two conference titles during his time, including winning both the regular season SAA Conference Title and SAA Conference Tournament Title his senior year with the Vikings. That season Berry finished in the top 15 of the NCAA Division III poll
His former coaches sing his praises and note they have no doubt he will make an excellent head coach.
“First of all, I love him to death. I had the pleasure of coaching him for two years at Buford. He was also a part of our 2017 state championships team. That was the first basketball state title at Buford. It was neat for him to be a part of that,” Eddie Martin, Wehunt’s coach at Buford, says. “He’s going to bring a solid work ethic. Dawson’s not afraid of hard work, and he’s willing to learn. When we get our first head coaching jobs there is a whole lot to learn. I think he is going to be a great coach before it all is said and done.”
Martin knows a bit about great coaching. During his high school coaching career, Martin’s squads won more than 850 games and nine state titles. He is also a member of the Gwinnett County Sports Hall of Fame.
“Dawson was willing to do whatever it took to win. He could score for us. He rebounded well for his size. He handled the ball well and was just a really good team player,” Martin says. “The fact that he didn’t have to score 25 points a game when he played stands out. He was happy to be contributing to the team any way he could to help.”
Something that Martin notes is how well Wehunt processed while playing on the court.
“His mental part of the game was probably a whole lot stronger than his physical part. He was a good athlete but not a great athlete. As a coach and someone who has done it as long as I have, when you see kids constantly thinking and processing you know they are going to be a strong player,” Martin says. “You know if they choose to go into coaching if they are strong mentally and at processing and learning the game, they have a chance to be a pretty good coach.”
Wehunt’s coach at Berry College, Mitch Cole, shares the same sentiments as Martin.
“Dawson was sort of a coach on the floor for us. I knew then that if he ever got into the business of coaching, he would be really good at it,” Cole says. “He is knowledgeable in the sport. Not just in the game, but in everything around it. He’s born for it. He is a basketball junkie. That’s a recipe for a good coach.”
Cole says Wehunt was a big reason the Vikings won the SAA Conference and SAA Conference Tournament his senior year at Berry. Saying that Wehunt was a really good shooter but also a player that did whatever they needed to do to help the team.
“He’s just genuinely a good person. He will have a good impact on the young men he is coaching. Don’t let the youth fool you. He is a grown man ready to take on his own program. I’m excited to see what he’s going to do there in Rome,” Cole says.
Cole, who has spent more than 30 years coaching at numerous levels including college is currently an assistant men’s coach at Samford University. The Bulldogs recently played in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, losing a close first-round contest to Kansas.
Both coaches also speak highly of Wehunt’s passion not only for the game but for making people better, something that Wehunt himself hopes to bring to the sidelines at Rome.
“We are going to be involved, sitting down with parents of our players and telling them the plan for their son, the style of play they are going to play, and that our goal is to get him to college and be successful at life after graduation. We want our players to graduate with a 3.0 GPA or higher. We want our players to get the most out of the experience at Rome,” Wehunt says.
