By Andy Walter

DOVER — A month ago, Dover High thought it had found a coach to take its football program into a successful future.

But that future didn’t turn out to last very long.

Kyle Lowery, who was approved by the Capital school board as the Senators’ new head coach on March 17, has decided not to take the job after all.

That leaves Dover advertising the position again with the hopes of having a candidate to present to the school board at its May 5 meeting.

“To say I was a little disheartened would be an understatement,” said Dover athletic director Kevin Turner. “But I’m still confident. We had a lot of good applicants. We didn’t have a bad interview, we just had good, better and best.

“Unfortunately, life happens. We wish Coach Lowery and his family the best. I truly believe that, if things were different, he’d be a good coach for us but it just didn’t work out that way.”

The 43-year-old Lowery is an assistant coach at Cherry Hill (N.J.) West High. He’s been a coach for 20 seasons, including stops at both the high school and college level.

Turner said he found out last week that Lowery wasn’t going to be taking the job.

“Coach Lowery had some things come up in the personal aspect of his life,” said Turner. “He decided it was not a good time to pursue the endeavor.”

During the last round of interviews, Turner said the committee interviewed 15 candidates. The district is advertising the position again.

With high schools in the middle of the spring sports season, Turner doesn’t think the Senators will be hurt by not having a head football coach right now. In the meantime, he’s taking care of the off-season details of keeping the program going.

“We’re dead-set on getting a quality applicant to fill the role and do a great job,” said Turner. “There’s not a whole lot you can do if you’re doing things properly right now under the regulations. You can only have so much going on at one time.

“I feel like if we can run a good process and can be in front of the board for the May meeting, that affords the successful applicant a couple weeks before the football camps start in June. From there, an experienced coach is right back in the saddle.”

Dover is looking for a replacement for Rudy Simonetti, who finished with a five-year record of 22-25, including 15-15 in the Henlopen North. The Senators went 17-10 with a 12-6 record in the North over the last three seasons.