The San Jose Stealth yesterday named Jeff Dowling as the team's head coach.

Dowling has spent several years around the National Lacrosse League, mainly as an assistant coach and scout. His most recent job was as an assistant with Buffalo this past season, helping the Bandits to their first championship since 1996.

"Jeff has a very impressive background as a coach, scout and assistant general manager and he has been a part of two championship teams in Buffalo this year and Calgary in 2004," Stealth general manager Johnny Mouradian said.

"[Dowling] has such a wealth of knowledge about the game both from a technical standpoint and from the personnel side. We are very excited to have him join our organization."

In his only previous NLL head coaching experience, Dowling served as interim coach of the Calgary Roughnecks in 2007, posting a 4-3 record and guiding the Riggers to a playoff berth.

Dowling replaces Walt Christianson, who was dismissed as head coach on Wednesday. In three seasons with the Stealth, Christianson reached the playoffs twice, having posted 9-7 records each of the past two seasons.