Ron Dawn recently attended a boys basketball game in the John Turner Classic at Newport between Campbell County and Newport Central Catholic with his head coach John Gross.
Gross’ grandson is Campbell County senior guard Jake Gross. John Gross and Dawn helped the Thoroughbreds to a second of three consecutive 9th Region titles during Dawn’s senior season with the Thoroughbreds in 1974. That team beat Monticello, 76-74 in the first round of the state tournament before losing 74-66 to Warren East in the state quarterfinals.
“It’s the most important thing. I’ve had a good relationship with him and his son since I played,” Dawn said of relationships with people like John Gross. “He came my senior year. I just thought he was a heck of a coach.”
Gross and other coaches are some of the reasons Dawn eventually became a coach. He would come back to the Hill and spend most of his 42 years in education. NewCath recently held a ceremony honoring Dawn for his accomplishments during that time. Dawn began his teaching career at NewCath in 1979 before spending four years at St. Henry from 1985-89, then returning to the Hill for 32 years.
Dawn retired as both principal and head boys basketball coach in 2021. He held several other positions during his tenure at NewCath. He also served as chair of the business department, business manager, director of athletics and dean of discipline.
Dawn made a huge impact for both the NewCath boys and girls basketball teams. After spending four seasons at St. Henry and compiling an 89-35 record, Dawn served 18 seasons as boys head coach at NewCath going 340-164 and 91-28 as the girls head coach in four seasons for an overall record of 520-227.
“So many of them have kids of their own. They’re getting to the point where they’re playing grade school basketball,” Dawn said. “I always told them, this is great. For most people, it’s a four-year deal. What are you going to do after this? You’re going to be good fathers, good husbands and be good men.”
Dawn guided the Thoroughbreds to the All “A” State championship and 9th Region crown in 2000. He came back to guide the Thoroughbreds to All “A” state titles in 2014 and 2015 with the likes of Drew McDonald and Jake Schulte. McDonald is currently an assistant under current NewCath boys head coach Jake Luhn and is a sales representative for the Cintas Corporation.
“He really instilled hard work, discipline. If you’re going to do it, do it to the best of your ability,” McDonald said. “I always tried to do that the two years I played for Coach Dawn. He obviously had a lot of success before he become the legendary figure he was, so I had the utmost respect for him and then off the court as a person, I keep up with him. He’s a great family fan.”
The 2015-2016 team led by Ben Weyer, Luke Moeves and Brennan Hall drove the deepest in the Sweet 16 that Dawn led. That Thoroughbreds team finished 30-5 winning that elusive 9th Region crown with a 52-47 win over Covington Catholic in the title game then made it to the state semifinals.
“We had a chance there in 2016. We had 150 boys in the school and we beat Louisville Trinity in the first round, who has 1,500 boys,” Dawn said. “They were number one most of the year. That was a great victory for us. We lost to Lexington Dunbar in the semifinals – another big school. We were up two or three going into the fourth quarter and kind of just ran out of gas.”
Dawn saw a lot of success leading the NewCath girls winning four 36th District championships and four All “A” 9th Region titles. The Thoroughbreds won the All “A” State championship in 2010 defeating Louisville Holy Cross, 56-40 led by senior guard Courtney Sandfoss and came a few points from a second one losing 38-36 in overtime to Walton-Verona two years later.
But the 2011 team won the 9th Region Tournament title with a 50-40 win over Boone County in the championship game. Senior guard Kiley Bartels paced the Thoroughbreds with 14 points in that game. Olivia Huber-Bryant, currently a fourth grade teacher at Johnson Elementary, was a junior guard on that team.
“Mr. Dawn was an amazing coach! He truly cared about us as people and not just players,” Huber-Bryant said. “He fostered relationships with each of us and truly guided and coached us to meet our individual needs. He looked at a player as a whole and how each player fit into the puzzle of the whole team. I think that’s what makes him really special. He was able to get the best from each player and the team as a whole. He helped me get to the level necessary play college basketball. I am forever thankful for having him as a coach.”
Toward the end of his tenure as principal, Dawn helped get the ball rolling on NewCath’s $13 million “Looking Up” Capital Campaign. One goal is to build an on-campus multi-purpose athletic complex that will play host to football, track and soccer games and give the baseball and softball teams a practice facility. The soccer teams still play home games at Morscher Field. He credited current principal Kenny Collopy for doing a good job leading the project that the Coronavirus 2019 pandemic set back.
“I think it will be fantastic for the school, for the kids obviously. We’ve traveled all over and it’s tough,” Dawn said. “They’ve made the most of it and that’ll just improve the success if we can get that to happen.”
Dawn still ranks fifth in career wins among Northern Kentucky boys basketball coaches with 429. Legendary Highlands head coach Ken Shields still leads that list with 460 wins, but longtime St. Henry head coach Dave Faust could pass him this season with 454 wins currently.