After 27 years as ODU’s Men’s Soccer Coach, an Emotional Farewell for Alan Dawson

NORFOLK, Va. – If you had the internet in 1997, it was almost surely the painfully slow dialup version. President Bill Clinton had just won a second term, Princess Diana was laid to rest and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was all the rage.
 
And Alan Dawson was in his first year as Old Dominion's men's soccer coach.
 
In the 27 years since, Dawson won 262 games and counting, took ODU to 12 NCAA tournaments and won six conference regular-season or tournament conference titles.
 
He also coached, mentored and changed the lives of hundreds of young men.
 
Friday night, more than 50 former players and hundreds of family members, friends and school officials gathered at the ODU Soccer Complex to bade farewell to the University's all-time winningest men's soccer coach. Dawson, 60, is retiring after coaching the Monarchs for nearly three decades.
 
Combined with his nine seasons at Methodist, Dawson has won 391 games over his distinguished career, which puts him among the top 20 of all active NCAA soccer coaches.
 
Prior to ODU's final home game, which the Monarchs lost to No. 6 Marshall, 2-0, well-wishers jammed inside the soccer complex to feast on sandwiches and broiled chicken and fete Dawson. It was an informal gathering – Dawson wanted no farewell speech – but there was plenty of emotion.
 
Trevor McEachron, a Northern Virginia native who was an All-American for Dawson in 2003, said "when I think of men in my life, my father, my other coaches, I think of Alan.
 
"He called me the first day he legally could call to recruit me and told me 'I'm offering you a full scholarship and I'm making a guarantee. Even if you get hurt, or for whatever reason you leave the team, you're going to keep your four-year scholarship.' It showed how much he cares for me as a person.

"If I had to do it all over again, I would come here or wherever he was the coach. I didn't come here because it was ODU or for the location or the education. I came here because of Alan."
 


Ross MacKenzie, captain of the 2006 team and who coaches the Richmond Kickers youth team, said Dawson was always an intense coach.
 
"He knows how to get the best out of human beings," said MacKenzie, a native of Scotland who graduated from Richmond's Clover Hill High School.
 
"The things that he told me when I was 18 years old, later on I realized that they changed me, made me a better person.
 
"You always want to come back and connect with him."
 
Former ODU goalie Evan Newton, a Virginia Beach native who had a 12-year pro career, said Dawson also demanded a lot from his players.
 
After what for ODU was then a poor season, Dawson brought in newcomers and challenged his team.
 
"He said if you're not invested, you're not going to be here," Newton said.
 
"The very next team meeting, I was like 10 minutes late. I walked in and he ripped me a new one."
 
Newton was a standout, but Dawson turned to team captain Jason Loizou, also from Virginia Beach, and asked if he should cut Newton from the team.
 
Loizou said no, and neither Newton nor his teammates were ever late for another meeting.
 
"I've since asked him if Jason had said yes, would he have really cut me," Newton said with a laugh. "He says no, but I'm not so sure.
 
"He knew how to get our attention and how to make us better players and better men."

ODU associate head coach Tenant McVea has spent most of the last decade with Dawson at ODU. Dr. Wood Selig, ODU's director of athletics, named McVea as Dawson's replacement earlier this year.
 
McVea and Dawson both grew up in Belfast, Ireland's east side. McVea's mother knew Dawson in high school. They are both similar in many ways.
 
"For me his management of young men was the thing that marked him as a great coach," McVea said. "He was always very inspiriting. He was able to walk into the locker room and without doing too much, command the respect of the players.
  
"We've been a great team. We've had our ups and downs in our relationship in the best way possible. He's the one who gave me my chance, my opportunity, and for that, I can never thank him enough.
 
"It's been a fantastic ride."
 
Mari, his wife of nearly four decades, said it was a hectic week leading up to Friday's game.
 
"He had a lot of guys calling and texting and telling him how much he meant to them and what he did for them," he said.
 
"He's done this for 35 years. I know he knows he's changed lives because he's a mentor. But to them hear it from them, or see it written from then, was pretty incredible."
 
Their middle son, Garrick, flew in from London, where he works for the rock band Coldplay, in what was supposed to be a surprise for his father. At the last minute, Mari unintentionally gave the surprise away.
 
Seventy seconds into an interview with Garrick, tears began rolling down his cheeks.
 
"I've never been in the locker room so I don't know what he says to the players," he said. "But I can imagine. He was such a great father.
 
"Now he has other things in the next step in his life. He'll go spend time with his mom. He'll have grandkids."
 
And a 10-day trip to London to, among other things, see the Arsenal soccer team play, as well as visit his son.
 
Mari said she has encouraged her husband to take a year off before deciding what is next in his career.
 
"When you've worked for 39 years, you should take a year off and breath," she said.
 
Alan and Mari will move from downtown Norfolk to a home they have in Duck, North Carolina, although only one half of this couple is retiring. Mari teaches exercise classes and will commute to Norfolk daily to work.
 
She has urged her husband to write a book. "I bought him all these pads of paper," she said.
 
Their daughter, Ellesse, will be married in South Africa early next year.
 
Mari said the entire family felt like a part of ODU athletics.
 
"Our kids grew up in this stadium," she said. "We lived in Larchmont because I always wanted to live by the field so the kids could walk in and see their father. Eventually, they began to ride their bikes to games. They all grew up roaming around the field here."
 
Dawson was disappointed in the loss to Marshall, but not by the turnout.
 
"I was touched by how many people were here," he said.
 
"Before the game was tough. I was smiling. All those people in the building and all of the players on the field.  That was very nice.
 
"I smiled through it but internally I was torn up.
 
"There were eight or 10 players I coached at Methodist who came here. Some of them are almost as old as me.
 
"We had guys who flew in for this game. From Texas and Florida."
 
And, of course, London.
 
As the interview was winding down, Garrick walked on the field and hugged his father.
 
"We have some people waiting for you," he said. "Come on Dad, let's go have a few pints."
 
A few well-earned pints.

Contact Minium at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram