Jul. 12—After almost a decade with Hatton High School, Denton Bowling was announced as Calhoun Community College’s new head softball coach on Thursday.
Bowling coached the Hornet softball program for seven years, collecting two state championships and more than 200 wins from 2016 to 2023, before moving to baseball the past two seasons. He also served as the school’s head football coach for nine seasons, compiling a 47-47 record with five playoff appearances.
He replaces Bart Stephenson, another former Hatton coach, who moved over to the Warhawks’ up-and-coming flag football program.
“Any coach always has the aspirations to try and take what they do to the next level and try to see if it’s successful and works there. So, I guess you call it scratching an itch,” Bowling said. “Since I started coaching, it was always a goal of mine to be able to get to the college level.”
After holding roles as Hatton’s assistant principal, football coach and baseball coach this past year, the 13-year coaching veteran said he was looking for a fresh start.
“Looking for something to kind of refresh my career and start something new,” he said. “I want to be energized and bring that to the next level.”
Bowling said he had tried to move up to the college level multiple times but never made the jump. He had even started to believe the door had closed until getting the call from Calhoun.
“You spend nine years of your life at a place, it becomes home. Hatton High School is all my children know, and you look at the relationships that you’ve built with the student athletes,” he said. “Then you have to look those students in the eye that have given everything for you and tell them you’re leaving, and that’s never easy.”
He said he hasn’t been able to meet the team yet but has sent out text messages and made calls. He’ll have his introductory meeting next Monday and says he wants to lay out expectations in their first meeting.
“The message I want to send across is that we’ve been able to be successful and we’re going to work to get better day by day. We want to set realistic and attainable goals and not turnaround day one and say national championship or bust,” he said. “I think at some point we would like to compete at the national level, but right now we’ve got to worry about who we are and what we want to accomplish.”
Just a day after the announcement, Bowling has been on the recruiting trail. Friday he was at the Heart of Dixie Exposure Tournament in Gardendale looking for potential recruits, and he has stops planned for the rest of July.
“ It’s kind of wild right now with everything going on and being on the time frame that we’ve been on, but we’re here” Bowling said. “We went to work the minute the official announcement came out and we came out running.”
Bowling said he’s excited about this next step in his life and can’t wait for the season to start next year.
“ I feel like it’s a great fit because I think we’re not going to be satisfied with complacency,” he said. “We always look to get better within the college, and softball program itself.”