Get to Know Men’s Basketball Assistant Coach Dion Bethea – Georgia Southern University Athletics

As a coach who has spent several years at one spot and experienced plenty of success, it can be hard to pick the time to jump to the next chapter.

The timing for the newest Georgia Southern men’s basketball assistant coach, Dion Bethea, finally felt right.

Bethea spent the last decade fine-tuning a 2A power in Gray Collegiate Academy in Columbia, winning six state championships and turning the War Eagles into one of the most dominant programs in South Carolina high school basketball.

For a guy who started in parks and recreation, and worked his way through the South Carolina AAU circuit and high school levels, this jump represents the next chapter in an already star-studded coaching career and his first stop at the collegiate level.

“I fell in love with basketball growing up, and after I stopped playing, I didn’t want to go into an office right away,” he said. “I wanted to continue working in basketball and coaching was a way to do that.”

Bethea welcomed the challenge to build the War Eagles into what you see today, long before they were playoff-eligible in 2A. He accrued over 270 wins at the school in a long and arduous development process.

“After building up the South Carolina Ravens AAU program, I wanted to build Gray Collegiate into one of the top programs in the country,” Bethea said. “I wanted a new challenge, and getting to build Gray from the ground up was something I had to dive head first into.”

The hardest thing about winning a championship is repeating it in future seasons. The War Eagles rarely ran into that issue, winning six during Bethea’s tenure, including the last three.

According to Bethea, it was a testament to the staff’s ability to identify and develop talent and continue their development trajectory at Gray which allowed for sustained success and growth on the team.

“Talent comes and goes, but when you have a great staff that helps with winning, and kids that believe in you, it can make that easy,” he said. “I’m a student of the game. I’ve gotten to work different camps and hone my coaching skills to aid in that. You can have a lot of talented players on a team, but you have to manage them, and working on being a good general manager has been key to that, and everyone around the programs had trust in one another.”

The impact of Gray Academy players is seen throughout college basketball. Not only are alums Avantae Parker and Braylhan Thomas set to appear for the Eagles next season, but over 25 of Bethea’s players have gone on to play at the collegiate level.

Bethea coached players like Tommy Bruner, who led Division I in scoring last season while playing at the University of Denver, and Juwan Gary, who was a valuable part of Nebraska’s rotation over four seasons.

The philosophy of sacrificing something to have success was instilled by Bethea into a lot of these players and is part of why the team had success over several seasons.

“In high school, you’ll have eight or nine guys on a team that are talented, but once they all understood that everyone has an opportunity to [play college basketball], it made my job easier,” he said. “To win championships, you have to give something to get something. Tommy [Bruner] could have easily averaged 30 points per game at Gray, but in our system, he realistically only averaged 16 points. He had to play within the system and show that he could play with other talented players.”

Two years ago, Bethea finished his degree at Benedict College while he was still coaching the War Eagles, which was a special moment for him and his circle.

“At 47 years old, I always had that in my back pocket while coaching, and I had conversations two years ago with Gray’s principal about finishing it,” he said. “I got it done in 16 months and graduated summa cum laude. It just shows that if you put your mind to something, you can do it, and that was at the top of my list. A lot of my players didn’t know about it and were excited for me when I told them. It felt good to get calls from friends and players about it.”

After all his success at the high school level, Bethea was ready for the next chapter. He stepped down as head coach at Gray, and after many conversations with his wife and kids, decided that now was the time to jump to the collegiate level, always a dream of his.

Before he left for Statesboro, he had one final special moment in West Columbia. He was awarded the key to the city, a previous honor only bestowed to legendary South Carolina women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley. Bethea remarked that it was hard to control his emotions at that moment.

An opportunity to jump into the collegiate coaching scene arrived recently for Bethea, joining the Georgia Southern staff earlier this month. After connecting several times during his tenure at Gray with Bice-Peace Head Men’s Basketball Coach Charlie Henry, the spot felt right for him.

“I had never been down to Statesboro before I visited for the first time, and [Coach Henry] took me around town, and it’s a really beautiful place,” Bethea said. “Everyone here is friendly, and Charlie’s vision of winning and winning right away excited me. I wanted to be a part of helping the team and everyone else on the staff win.”

Reconnecting with Gray alums Parker and Thomas was an exciting facet of the job before joining, but getting to coach the group of players both returning and joining the team for the first time was also a big part of the draw.

The prospect of ascending the Eagles into a Sun Belt power, as he experienced before taking the job at Gray nearly a decade ago, is the biggest part of Bethea’s excitement for joining the staff.

“I want to be one of the best assistants out there for Coach Henry and I want to make sure we have one of the best coaching staffs,” Bethea said. “I want us to win for Coach Henry and make sure we’re all on the same page. I’ll always bring the positive energy, and when you have that energy and see what’s in front of you, you either sit back and let someone else get it or we can sit there and do it together and go win the Sun Belt and have a chance to get to the NCAA Tournament.”

As offseason preparations and workouts begin, Bethea hopes to see a similar trajectory in the Eagles that he brought to the War Eagles over the last ten seasons.