Longtime Centerville cross country coach takes job at UD

“I loved what I was doing in Centerville,” Dobson said, “but I felt like this could be a different opportunity.”

Dayton announced the hiring of Dobson as men’s and women’s cross country coach and assistant track and field coach Aug. 8.

“To be at an institution like the University of Dayton,” Dobson said, “and to be with these kinds of athletes, I feel extremely fortunate.”

Dobson takes over for Jason Ordway, who led the men’s cross country program to its first Atlantic 10 Conference championship in 2016, his second as coach. He took over the women’s program in 2017 and coached the men’s and women’s programs to conference championships that year.

Dobson knows Ordway. They worked together at a local running store.

“I had some people reach out to me and tell me the position was coming up,” Dobson said. “It’s nice Jason is not leaving it with any adversity or anything like that. It’s just a matter of life and decisions. The culture here seems strong. The athletes have been incredibly welcoming. I’m so excited about the opportunity.”

Both Dayton teams open the season Sept. 2 at Wright State’s Mike Baumer Classic at Fairborn Community Park. The women’s team finished second out of six teams at that meet a year ago, third out of 28 teams at the All-Ohio Championship and second out of 13 teams at the A-10 championship. The men’s team won the Baumer Classic last year and placed fourth at the All-Ohio and A-10 meets.

Dobson first met his new athletes via Zoom video conferences or in-person interviews and then met them all together in person for the first time Wednesday. They held their first team practice the same day at Old River Park near campus.

Dobson’s running career started in his hometown of Tiffin. His sister, Diana, who’s four years older, started running and inspired his career.

“I thought I was going to play football,” Dobson said. “I was going to do the more traditional route, but I watched her have some success and thought, ‘I’m gonna try it,’ and I just fell in love with it at that point.”

Dobson ran at Anderson University (Ind.), where he met his wife Amy, who’s from Miamisburg. He found a teaching job in Centerville after graduation and called to see if they had any coaching opportunities. He coached a year at the middle school level before the girls cross country job at the high school opened. He spent 22 years in that position. He also had several stints coaching track and field at Centerville and Oakwood.

A big difference at this level is the number of runners Dobson will be coaching.

“Now instead of having 80 runners that are somewhere between 17 and 32 minutes, I’ve got 16 runners who are between 17 and 20 minutes,” he said. “It’s just more compacted, which is nice. We’ll still be a developing program. We’re still going to need to bring some athletes in our program that we think have the potential of developing in a year or two but will also try to find the ones that you know might be able to spark us right away.”