Local coach LeDondrick Rowe passes away at age 44

Author: Zach Oliveri
Published: Updated:

Behind every star play, there’s a coach helping achieve that stardom and pushing them to be the best. That’s what LeDondrick Rowe loved to do, ever since he was 18 coaching his seven siblings.

“He could see good in people that they could do better,” LeDondrick’s mom Marsenia said. “And everything and so by him helping people do better that made him do better with himself.

LeDondrick Rowe, 44, passed away Saturday after a battle with cancer. Known to many as Coach Dondrick, he committed his life to training athletes. He even helped get local players to the NFL, such as Sammy and Jaylen Watkins. It all started in his signature workouts

“I played college ball. Got to play arena ball. To this day, by far, Coach Dondrick set the standard for the hardest workout,” Patrick Ryan recalled. “I remember one point in time I was probably 13 14 years old halfway through the workout I hid inside the Shady Oaks Boys and Girls club bathroom so I didn’t have to go back out and finish the workout.”

“He was the rough ’em up make ’em good coach,” Marsenia Rowe said.

Coach Dondrick was most recently a defensive back coach at Charlotte High School. Even through his fight with cancer, he was still coaching.

“He just brought the intensity and he had such high expectations and would bring out the best in these young men. It was unmatched,” Charlotte head coach Cort Mentzer explained.

“He loved them,” Marsenia Rowe said. “Because he told me those were his kids. Cause he always said I said Dondrick you don’t have no kids. He said mom I got a lot of them,” She said laughing.”

“He said I have more than you can even have,” Rowe recounted.

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