Former Tiger Cub Alison Dobbs tabbed and ready to lead Greencastle girls’ soccer in 2024

Thrown for a loop twice since in the past few months, Greencastle’s girls’ soccer team will not go into the 2024 season wondering who will be leading the squad out each night.

Following the departure of Scott Monnett in April and Greg Ruark in June, Alison Dobbs will take over as head coach pending board approval next month.

Dobbs inherits a group that finished as WIC and sectional champions a year ago though one that will also skew younger after the graduation of eight seniors from a year ago.

Unlike several other candidates, Dobbs noted she had not applied when Monnett announced in April that he would leave to join the YMCA of Greater Birmingham, Ala. knowing that Ruark was a highly-qualified choice to lead the program.

Once Ruark stepped down after leaving his position as Greencastle park director, however, Dobbs said she decided to apply in order to keep the enthusiasm from the summer from fading away.

“I knew the girls were excited about having Greg as a coach,” Dobbs said. “They were disappointed when he had to step away from the position and I wanted to be part of trying to keep their energy up, alive and going that they had with Greg.

“We can still have a great season. Hopefully, with my background knowledge and despite a short prep time, we can get a lot accomplished in the little time we have before the season.

“Scott left a good group of girls with great fundamentals,” Dobbs added. “There’s a lot to build off of and, from the seniors down to the freshmen, the girls love the game and we wanted to keep the enthusiasm going and not leave lingering doubts about who the next coach was going to be.”

While this will be Dobbs’ first time as a high school coach, the Greencastle native has been involved at various levels of the sport, playing for the Tiger Cubs for four years in high school and collegiately at Marian University, and will be counting on that experience, as well as the guidance of several former teammates, to help get settled into the coaching position.

“I’ve coached from rec league down, including being involved with the Putnam Panthers club travel team,” Dobbs noted. “I’ve been around soccer coaching for years with Ali (Dobbs) playing at different levels and have built up relationships with several club coaches.

“Several of my friends from college have gone on to coach at the club and college level, so I have those connections to work with, and I have stayed on top of the game and the changes and progress its made over the past few years, even though I haven’t been coaching.”

Even though Dobbs is a familiar to face to everyone on the team, building connections with all the players was something the new coach wanted to establish quickly in order to start building a rapport with the team.

“I don’t want to say it will be easy because it’s not an easy task, no matter how well you know the kids or the team,” Dobbs said. “It does lessen the anxiety factor some of the kids might have.

“Hopefully it will give the girls a boost of confidence as they have everything they need, they just need to piece it together. When I was on the sidelines for the first time, I found out they had just started practicing a new formation and the cool thing with this team is that, despite both things being new, they have the confidence to believe they can deal with both.”

Dobbs also had to make sure that taking the coaching reins wasn’t going to alienate her own daughter, Ali, a senior for the Tiger Cubs this season, as well as making sure that the dynamic wasn’t going to be an issue with other players as well.

“That was one of the major conversations I had with both (Greencastle athletic director Doug Greenlee) and Ali,” Dobbs said about being the coach and parent of a player on the team. “There’s always going to be questions about that but in this case, if Ali wasn’t comfortable with me being in that position, then I would not have continued on in the process.”

Beyond board approval, there will be several items for Dobbs to tick off before practices begin Aug. 5, including IHSAA coaching course work, though the coach-to-be said having Sam Call return as assistant coach was invaluable to the team.

“Sam is a huge support for me and knows the girls very well,” Dobbs said. “At a scrimmage, she was telling me all sorts of things like who was primarily left footed, certain nicknames girls go by and other little things like that.

“It’s important to have someone like Sam who knows what the girls’ preferences are and the ins and outs of things that are going on.”

With a week before practices begin, Dobbs said she was encouraged by the initial feedback she was receiving from the players and was hoping to keep the momentum going once the 2024 season began.

“I think so,” Dobbs said about whether or not she was getting positive responses from the players. “We gave them some optional practices during Fair Week, which they were supposed to be off during, and a good handful of them still showed up.

“Not having a coach can weigh heavy on a team. As long as everything goes to plan, they’re excited and they’re also relieved.”