LYNN – The Lynn Tech girls basketball team is in the market for a new head coach.John Crowley, who led the Tigers to Commonwealth Conference titles the last four years, is stepping down after 16 years as head coach. Crowley informed director James Ridley of his decision on Monday.”He’ll be sorely missed,” Ridley said. “He put his time in. He’s a tireless worker and a professional in all aspects. He had that program up and running and successful for a lot of years.”Crowley said he has some family health issues that are going to crop up in the coming year and as a result, he won’t be able to put in all the time the job requires.”It’s probably a good time for somebody else to come in. This group that just left, I promised them five years ago that if they stayed with me, I’d stay with them and they stayed,” Crowley said.Crowley took over the job, previously held by retired Tech athletic director Dave Johnson, in 1993. Since then, Crowley has compiled a record of 205 win and 125 losses. His teams qualified for the state tournament 12 times and were the state vocational champions three times (2000, 2007, 2008) since the tournament was started in 2000. The Tigers went to the North final three times during his tenure (1998, 2000 and 2004).Crowley is the first to admit that coaching at a vocational school brings with it a unique set of challenges, not the least of which involves working around and through the co-op jobs that make it difficult for players to play a sport through their senior year.”They have distractions with their jobs, their co-ops situations. It’s a different kind of student, but once you accept that, you appreciate how much more they’re doing than an academic student. There’s so much more they have to do ? you try and make sports important to them, but they’re divided for their shot, for work. Their mindset isn’t totally on sports all the time,” Crowley said.Crowley’s record speaks to the success his team’s have enjoyed, but he also takes pride in some of the individual accomplisments of his past and present players. One of those former players is Rania (Ioanidis) Caldwell, who is currently his assistant.”Ranis was the most driven player I’ve coached,” Crowley said. “She had tunnel vision for winning. She played hard, played hurt and never accepted losing. She went to Salem State, got her teaching degree and now she’s coaching.”Crowley had three 1,000 point scorers during his tenure. Two of them, Jessica Underwood and Shena Mitchell, hit the milestone this year. The third, Ebony White, went on to play basketball at Newbury College, where she served as a captain for two years.Crowley had a number of other players leave their mark at Tech, including Karen Graciale, Sandy Baker,Patti Murat, Darcell Clare,Jamie Cornacchini and Stacie Baker.Tech finished 17-5 last year including two wins in the vocational tournament. Although the nucleus of that team will be gone, Crowley said there’s still a good group of players remaining.”There’s a nice little group that’s left there for whoever come in. We had a nice, solid group of sophomores,” Crowley said.Crowley, who was the head baseball coach from 1992 until 2006, said the success of the team has also depended on how well players accept their roles and the overall team concept.”The coach is driving the bus, but they’re putting the gas in the bus and they’re making it go,” Crowley said.Crowley thanked his past and present assistants, Caldwell, Coughlin and Gene Gallo, for their help. He also thanked former athletic director Johnson, former school directors Al Malagrifa and Bart Conlon and the entire Tech faculty for their support over the years.