By By SCOTT NOVAK / Niles Daily Star
Newly-hired Dowagiac boys' varsity basketball coach Greg Blomgren is no stranger to southwestern lower Michigan.
After all, he is married to former Brandywine volleyball standout Angela (Crouch) Blomgren.
He admits, however, he does not know a lot out about the style of play his team will face this winter.
Blomgren found out about the job through his father-in-law, Jay Crouch, who recently retired as band director at Brandywine. Crouch had been keeping track of area basketball jobs so that he could perhaps get his daughter and son-in-law a little closer to home than Clear Lake, Iowa.
Blomgren, 30, has taken a basketball program at Clear Lake from playing second fiddle to football and made it respectable.
Clear Lake was 17-6 in his first year as head coach and 14-4 in the North Central Conference. Although he lacked experience this past season, Clear Lake was still 9-13 under Blomgren and reached the district championship game for the second straight year.
Previously it had been 10 years since Clear Lake had played in a district championship game.
That will come in handy for Blomgren at Dowagiac, who not only has to share players, but facilities during the winter with volleyball. That problem could ease in another year when the new junior high opens up and there are more facilities to work with.
Blomgren knows that if he is going to be successful in Dowagiac like he was in Clear Lake, he is going to have to get the players and their parents involved in the program.
Blomgren knows he is behind, but is looking forward to getting to Dowagiac and getting acclimated to his new surroundings.
Dowagiac was 6-16 this past season and has lost 32 of its 43 games in the Big-16 Conference.
Blomgren said that he will not come to Dowagiac with a set philosophy as to how his team will play. Instead he will come to town, get to know his players and see what they are going to be capable of doing and then decide on a style of play.
The Blomgrens have two children, a daughter Allyssa, who is three, and a son, Andrew, who is one and a half.