By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
DALLAS, Ore.– Drew Richman learned a lot in his first-year as a Varsity Head Coach last year. And it was made easier knowing his had an absolute legend of a coach in Mark Stevens as an assistant to help him adjust to the new role in running a program.
Stevens, to Richman, was his High School defensive coordinator, but in the Girls Basketball realm, he was the fourth winningest Head Varsity Coach ever in the State of Oregon at 583 career wins. All at 4A Cascade High School. And Richman took those lessons learned from his former football coach and started to make it his own as he entered Year 2 as a Head Coach at Dallas High School.
“To have a legend come out and get my feet underneath me to get it started was a blessing not just for me, but for the players and Dallas as a whole,” said Richman.
Entering Year 2, the program graduated four seniors, but the Dragons return a solid athletic core for the 2025-2026 season. A young group sure, points Richman, but the potential is there and that’s where they’re putting in the work now to figure it all out with the first games of the season coming up starting next week.
For the seniors this year, they know the importance of this year after the seniors prior to them helped set that foundation for them as a senior group now, as well as a program, to take that next step with.
“It’s a really big role for us to influence the younger kids and set an example early so we can start being leaders as seniors,” said Ruby Halligan.
“It was really great coming from the spot where we were at and seeing all the areas that we can improve in leadership wise and on the court. It’s great having all of these great new people coming in, so just being able to come in and be the leaders that we want to set the foundation for this year as well as last year, it’s really cool,” adds Riley Rozar.
Richman spoke to how well those seniors have stepped up as leaders, and with their athleticism and wanting to go full-court to take advantage of that athleticism, that’s been their focus so far in practice, they are hoping it leads to some competitive games this season and a few wins in that win column when it’s all said and done.
“We’re young, but we also have a great group of senior leaders. We got a lot of juniors who got a lot of JV minutes last year that are ready to step into big roles on Varsity this year as seniors. Mix in with our couple of juniors that we have and that sophomore class of Alivia Webster, Maeve Woolsey and Harlow Nelson…we have a lot of athleticism and now it’s how we use them on the court,” said Richman.
The Dragons open the season at the Gresham Jamboree on December 3 before hosting Franklin for their home, and season, opener on December 5.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
