Prep softball: McKinney adds duties with Lady Cats

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Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen Dalton coach Jeff McKinney, shown with daughter Chandler during last year’s softball season, will take over the Lady Cats softball team as head coach.

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July 20, 2012

Prep softball: McKinney adds duties with Lady Cats

By Chris Whitfield chriswhitfield@daltoncitizen.com The Dalton Daily Citizen Fri Jul 20, 2012, 11:27 PM EDT

— When toe meets rubber and the first pitch of the high school softball season is thrown this fall, a new head coach will be in the dugout for the Dalton Lady Catamounts.

According to Dalton Athletic Director Ron Ward, Bobby Brotherton has resigned from Dalton Public Schools to take an administrative job with Whitfield County Schools, and Dalton girls basketball coach Jeff McKinney will take over the coaching duties on the diamond for the Lady Cats.

In addition to his softball duties, Brotherton was also Dalton’s head baseball coach. Ward said while McKinney will take over the softball program, no decision has been made on who will take over the baseball team next spring.

McKinney, who has previous softball coaching experience as a head coach in Mississippi where he guided his team to a slow-pitch state title, has been an assistant coach under Brotherton for the previous three seasons.

“Since I have been at Dalton, I have coached softball and basketball, so it won’t change my schedule very much,” McKinney said. “I am not sure that anyone can replace Coach B, but I am going to give it a shot. It won’t be that bad because I have been with them the last three years. I will just have a different hat on now.”

The Lady Cats were 19-18 in 2011, advancing to the Class 3A state playoffs before being eliminated in the first round by eventual state champions Oconee County.

Dalton will return seven starters and also benefit from the return of Blakely Thomason, who missed all of last season due to injury.

But replacing players — including his daughter Chandler, who was an All-Area selection last year — will not be McKinney’s biggest task.

“The biggest challenge for me is to replace the knowledge of coach Brotherton,” McKinney said. “There is no one individual I have ever been around who knows the game better than him. The kids will miss him. That’s my challenge.”

McKinney has been the Lady Cats’ head basketball coach for 12 years, advancing to the Class 3A state championship game in 2011. Even though softball and basketball seasons come one after the other, McKinney said there is no overlap in play or practice.

“It used to be a little bit worse, but now basketball can’t start until the end of October, and softball is over in the middle of October,” he said. “Even if we made a deep run in softball, it wouldn’t affect the basketball team, and a lot of these same girls will be with me in basketball anyway.

“We are already pretty much around each other a lot to begin with. I care about these kids, and that was the biggest asset for me.”

The Lady Cats will begin official practices on Aug. 1.

Attempts to reach Brotherton on Thursday were unsuccessful.

Brotherton, who coached college baseball at UT-Chattanooga and Chatta-nooga State, was named the Dalton baseball coach in 2008 after the sudden dismissal of Jed Douglas, who was fired shortly before the first regular-season game. Brotherton had been the head softball coach since 2004.

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Prep softball: McKinney adds duties with Lady Cats

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