In recognition of his success as softball coach, the DeKalb County Board of Education Thursday night voted to honor DCHS Tigerette Coach Danny Bond by naming the high school softball field after him.
Coach Bond is the only coach the DCHS girls softball program has had in its twenty nine year history and he reached a milestone this season, having won his 600th game as softball coach. He has added eleven more wins since then and has guided this year’s team to a district tournament championship. The Tigerettes will host Bledsoe County in the region tournament Monday, May 12 in Smithville. The team record is 38-5 overall.
School Board member W.J. (Dub) Evins, III said it’s time the board recognized Coach Bond. “He is a coach that has the respect of his students and players. He is a positive coach. He leads by example. I would like to read you some statistics. Before he started into softball, he was an assistant basketball coach for five years. He was a head basketball coach for seventeen years. He has been softball coach for twenty nine years. Out of those twenty nine years, he has had twenty nine winning seasons, sixteen district titles, twenty two regional appearances, nine sub-state appearances, and five state appearances. His overall record is 611-241. That’s a 72% winning percentage. His district record, which is a tough district, is 265-54 which is an 83% winning percentage. So for twenty two out of the twenty nine years, he went to the region,” he said.
In recent conversations with him, Evins said Coach Bond gives credit for his success to the players on his teams. “He told me, he said it’s not me, it’s the girls. Well, that is a two way street, ” said Evins. “They have respect for him and when you have respect for a coach like him, they feed off each other and they need each other. I think that is evident in the fact that there have been twenty one girls on his softball teams in twenty nine years that have signed scholarships to go play softball in college. That means a lot. I would like for this board to consider naming the girls softball field in honor of Coach Bond, even though he is still coaching. In most cases we name something in honor of somebody after they have finished coaching but it’s Teacher Appreciation Week. He has set all kinds of records and he is going to continue to do so and if no one has any objections I would like to put that in the form of a motion that we name the girls softball field after Coach Danny Bond,” Evins concluded.
The board gave unanimous approval.
Archived News & Obituaries