Matt Bowe hopes to make basketball ‘cool again’ for Daniel Boone girls

By Sean McBryan — MikeDragoSports.com correspondent

Daniel Boone girls basketball is in need of a breath of fresh air. 

The Blazers haven’t won a game in the past two seasons and take a 48-game losing streak into this season. Matt Bowe, who was name Boone head coach last month, hopes to provide a culture change.

Bowe isn’t a stranger to struggling teams.

He took over as head coach at Upper Perkiomen in 2019 with the Indians coming off a 1-21 season. They were 19-111 in the six seasons before Bowe arrived.

They went 0-21 in his first year, 2-13 in his second and 15-9 with a district appearance last season, his third. He hopes to see the same turnaround with the Blazers.

“I was set to go back (to Upper Perk) this year,” Bowe said. “My wife is a Boone alum and we live near French Creek. I started (coaching) at Upper Perk, I wanted to be there forever. Then we moved here, and our family is strong here. We’re expecting our first baby.

“Instead of driving an hour and 10 minutes every day to Upper Perk, it would be kind of nice to drive four minutes down the road.”

Bowe and the Indians lost to the Blazers in his first season at Upper Perkiomen. It was the Blazers’ second-most recent win, a little over two weeks before their last win, which was over Hamburg on Jan. 13, 2020. 

Before Upper Perk’s breakthrough last season, Daniel Boone actually beat Bowe and the Indians in his first season as head coach. It was the Blazers second most recent win, a little over two weeks before their last win which was over Hamburg on January 13, 2020. 

Last season the Indians beat the Blazers, 55-8.

“When we played I saw a lot of similarities at Boone that I saw at Upper Perk,” Bowe said. “I wasn’t a teacher; I wasn’t a parent of kids. There was no favoritism or nepotism. My biggest thing at Upper Perk was to rebuild the culture and make basketball cool again.”

Bowe had previous stints coaching JV girls basketball at Upper Merion and for several teams in the AAU circuit. During the day he’s a financial planner and owns an insurance company with his brother.

He understands and emphasizes the balance between allowing players to have a life outside of basketball, encourages them to play other sports and will try to recruit other athletes to come out for the team. That worked at Upper Perkiomen.

It will become easier as Bowe makes his presence known on the rec and middle school levels, something he said are among his top priorities in order to increase interest in the program.

“You’ve got to rebuild it from scratch and give the girls an opportunity to play,” Bowe said. “When they lose, you can’t be like: ‘Yo, you just lost!’ We lost as a team. It didn’t go our way. But here’s the opportunity: We got to play tonight. Let’s build on it and move forward.”

The 31-year-old Phoenixville grad hopes to make playing basketball fun again in Birdsboro, build a culture and see the positive energy blossom.

“My kids are going to go to Boone and they’re going to grow up in the town,” Bowe said. “If I can develop a program that my kids can benefit from, why not?”

Bowe replaces Kyle Tranovich, who coached the Blazers the past three seasons.

The Blazers start the season at the Antietam Tip-Off Tournament Dec. 2.