Around this time last year, Charlottesville’s boys basketball team was gearing up for a season that – unbeknownst to them – would end in a state tournament berth and a rallying post for our community. After events last November, which led to a school closure and a media flurry around CHS, it seemed as though there was nothing that could dispel the image of our school as a deeply chaotic, violent, divided place.
However, as time went on, the basketball season arrived. Both of Charlottesville’s boys and girls basketball teams kept winning and winning. The girls ended the regular season with a perfect 24-0 record, while the boys went 21-3 and clinched an electric win over rival Albemarle. Both teams ended up with spots in the state tournament and achieved levels of popularity that brought people all over Charlottesville to their games. Suddenly, CHS was plastered over social media, except this time, people were talking about how successful our basketball teams were.
Last year’s basketball season was the boys’ final one with coach Mitch Minor. A member of CHS’s first graduating class in 1975, Coach Minor led the team to more than 400 wins during his 30-year career at CHS. After Coach Minor announced his retirement, one question was on everyone’s minds: who’s next?
A few months later, in May, a new coach was announced: Andre Dawkins. This hire was met with many enthusiastic reactions, with people calling him a “home run hire” who will “have the program to state contention in no time.” Dawkins’s impressive basketball experience at Duke, the NBA, and overseas is extremely exciting for the future of CHS boys basketball.
Dawkins grew up in Chesapeake as a star basketball player at Deep Creek High School and later Atlantic Shores Christian. Known for his three-point shooting abilities, he was selected for the first team all-state three times and averaged 22.4 points per game.
Dawkins committed to play college basketball at Duke University in 2008, and chose to graduate high school a year early to do so. “It was a bit of a whirlwind,” he says of this transition. “I had to complete an English credit over the summer while playing on the AAU circuit. I played my last tournament in early August and was moving into Duke a few weeks later. It ended up working out well for me, but there were definitely a lot of moving parts leading up to enrolling that fall.”
While at Duke (with renowned coach Mike Krzyzewski), Coach Dawkins won a National Championship in 2010. He sparked Duke’s offense in many games with his rarely-missed three-pointers. In one game against Wake Forest in 2012, he hit seven three-pointers in the first half to lead Duke to victory. After college, he played with the Miami Heat in the NBA and eventually played in Italy and the NBA G-League.
After he ended his professional basketball career, Dawkins started his coaching career in 2022 at Mount St. Mary High School in Oklahoma City. How did playing basketball at such a high level influence his understanding of the sport as a coach? “I think the biggest thing is learning that there’s no one way to get the job done,” Coach Dawkins explains. “The best coaches I played for were adaptable and worked with what they had to get the best out of [their players]. So that’s kind of my philosophy.”
Since moving from Mount St. Mary to CHS, he’s continued following this philosophy. “We’ll see what we have and then work with it from there,” he says. “So, for me, there’s a little bit of molding to your team instead of making your team mold to you. We’ll figure out what we have and use that to put us in the best position to win.”
“If we don’t have guys that can shoot really well, then it doesn’t make sense to draw up a lot of plays with threes,” Dawkins continues. “And vice versa, if we’ve got guys that can shoot, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to draw up a lot of plays for layups,” he explains. “So, I’m just trying to learn what we have and what our strengths are and play to those. If our strength is playing pressure defense, then we’ll do that, and if our strength is doing something else, then we’ll do that.”
Out of all the schools Dawkins could have coached at, CHS stood out to him because, he says, “I wanted to be a head coach again, and also the history of CHS and the history of having really good basketball here was intriguing to me,” he explains. “I just wanted to take on the challenge of keeping that history going.”
Although Coach Dawkins cares deeply about basketball and succeeding in the sport, he also wants to leave an influence on his players lasting beyond basketball. “I’m looking forward to getting to know our guys and hopefully trying to create relationships with them that last past them playing here for me,” he says. “I think that’s one of the biggest things that Coach [K] did at Duke for us, we can still always reach out to him and ask him questions and ask for help and things like that. So, I want to create that here, where they [the players] understand that they’re more than just basketball players, they’re people. And, you know, I care about them and want to build that level of trust with them.”
The upcoming basketball season is sure to come with a lot of hype and electric energy in CHS’s gym. This is one of the things Coach Dawkins is most excited about: “[I’m looking forward to] being here and being a part of the atmosphere. I’ve heard games are a lot of fun and the atmosphere is great. And, you know, playing at Duke for four years, I love being in a great atmosphere.” Does the CHS gym compare to Cameron Indoor Stadium? He’ll find out!
