Winning Ways

Soccer coach Alan Dawson hungry for more after a stellar 2003 season

By Bobby Parks

Nine consecutive shutouts to start the season. A 14-0 record and a No. 2 national ranking. Wins over two top-five teams. A return appearance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

These were but a few of the many highlights the Old Dominion men’s soccer team enjoyed in its record-breaking 2003 season, a season that ended with the Monarchs holding a 15-4-1 mark after falling 2-1 to No. 2-seed Maryland in the NCAA Tournament.

The 2004 campaign got off to a great start as well, with the Monarchs winning their first four games and earning a No. 5 national ranking.

It wasn’t all that long ago when just winning a game was tough for the men’s soccer program. In 1996, ODU managed just three victories in a dismal 3-17-0 season. But, that was before head coach Alan Dawson stepped foot on campus. The 1997 team, the first under Dawson’s direction, drastically improved to a 7-9-1 record – the only losing season Dawson has had in his eight years at Old Dominion.

“When I first got here, I’m not sure the players believed in themselves. They had a losing mentality,” Dawson recalled.

“To overcome that, you have to work hard and we did. We worked hard in practice and in the games. My first year here, I exerted more energy than I have in the other seven. I had to try and change the players’ mentality. A coach can’t necessarily control a player’s talent, but he can control how hard he practices and plays.”

ODU improved to 8-8-2 in Dawson’s second season, but he knew better times lay ahead.

“Things don’t change immediately,” Dawson observed. “It takes time. Within three years, we had 15 wins and we were beginning to see the fruits of our labor.”

It was 1999 that proved to be the Monarchs’ breakout year, when they finished the season 15-4-0.

“I think as a coach, I have a pretty good relationship with the players,” said Dawson, a native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, who played his college soccer at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania. “I’m able to motivate them and I have pretty good instincts for what needs to be done. There are no shortcuts. It’s all about taking care of the little things. You can’t take anything for granted.”

A turning point for the Monarchs came in 2002, when they made the NCAA Tournament for only the second time in school history and the first time since 1991. ODU also advanced to the second round for the first time. The Monarchs’ return trip in 2003 has only fueled the team’s ambition for loftier goals.

“We want more,” said Dawson. “We want to be talking national championship.”

Dawson’s drive and confidence are not lost on his players.

“I think he’s a very successful coach because he’s a very good person,” said senior defender Trevor McEachron, of Woodbridge, Va., last year’s Colonial Athletic Association Defender of the Year. “He relates really well to the players and he has an open-door policy, whenever we need him. He’s very confident and that allows us to play better on the field.”

After losing the all-time leading scorer in ODU history, Attila Vendegh, to graduation after last season, the Monarchs will be looking to other players to step forward this year.

“It’s very difficult to tell how Attila’s departure will affect us,” said Dawson, a three-time CAA Coach of the Year. “We’ll miss him for what he did best – finishing chances. He was our go-to guy. We’ll have to get things done by committee this year. We’ll need a lot of guys who contribute.”

Lifting some of the pressure off the team is a star-studded and balanced recruiting class, which was ranked No. 23 in the country by College Soccer News. Among the new players is Edson Elcock, who had signed a letter of intent with the Monarchs last season before opting to play a year at Wingate University, and Jared Kent, a former Monarch who is returning to the team after a two-year Mormon mission.

“They’re both very dynamic, exciting players,” Dawson said.

Of the other newcomers – all true freshmen – Dawson noted, “They have a lot of potential. It’ll all depend on how long it takes them to adjust to the college game.”

To fans who want to know if the Monarchs can repeat their stunning 2003 season, all Dawson can say is: “You can never tell.”

“This is a very fickle business. A large part of it is momentum, getting a good start and staying injury-free,” he said, a reference to a particular weekend late in the 2003 season when the Monarchs lost the services of defenders McEachron and Ian Kaila to knee injuries.

“If we can build the team chemistry and camaraderie that we had last year, we’ll be good. There’s very little that separates teams these days. We do what we can to continue our winning ways.”