Trio of Centenary Head Coaches To Speak At Annual LHSCA Summer Clinic

Baton Rouge – A trio of Centenary head coaches - football coach Byron Dawson men's basketball coach Chris Dorsey, and men's and women's track and field & cross-country head coach Joseph Moses Jr. will speak at the annual Louisiana High School Coaches Association (LHSCA) Summer Clinic on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The two-day clinic, held at the Crowne Plaza hotel, features an impressive list of both high school and college coaches from across the state of Louisiana and the country. Dorsey will speak on Tuesday from 10-10:50 a.m., Moses will speak from 3:30-4:20 p.m. on Tuesday while Dawson will present from 9-9:50 a.m. on Wednesday.

Chris Dorsey enters his sixth season as head coach of the Centenary men's basketball program in 2022-23. Dorsey, one of the top young coaches in the country, is 67-61 overall in five seasons at the helm and an impressive 46-30 in conference play.

Dorsey led the Gents to their best season in the division III era and one of the most successful seasons in program history in 2019-20 as the Maroon and White won their first Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament title to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history, losing a heartbreaker, 83-81, at UT-Dallas.

The SCAC tournament title also marked the Gents' first men's basketball conference title since 1980 when the Maroon and White claimed both the regular season and conference tournament championships while a member of the Trans America Athletic Conference (now the Atlantic Sun Conference) and Dorsey was named SCAC Coach of the Year. Centenary has finished .500 or better in all five seasons under Dorsey, have made the semifinals of the conference tournament four times, and the championship game twice.

Dawson was chosen as the new head coach on March 29 following a national search and will lead the program when the Gents return to the field in the fall of 2024 after five decades without the sport on campus. Dawson is one of the most recognizable names in local football at any level. He put together an impressive high school career at Evangel Christian Academy in Shreveport, where he was selected as the USA Today High School All American Defensive MVP for Louisiana, named Class 3A All-State and Defensive MVP, and helped lead Evangel to a 15-0 record in 1997, three state championships, and a No. 17 national ranking, among other accolades. Dawson was also the back to back state champion in the shot put his junior and senior year.

Dawson is a graduate of LSU where he was a four-year letterman on the defensive line, recording 86 tackles and four sacks while playing for Nick Saban, Pete Jenkins, Will Muschamp, Karl Dunbar, and Bo Davis. Dawson was part of LSU's nationally-ranked defense during the 2001 season, during which the Tigers upset Tennessee to win the SEC Championship and then defeated Illinois in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.

He started his coaching career at Redemptorist High School Baton Rouge in 2004 before returning home to an impressive 15-year coaching tenure at his high school alma mater, Evangel. During Dawson's tenure, Evangel Christian Academy reached the Louisiana State Championship seven times (2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2016). He also earned the honor of AIM National Coach of the Year in 2017. In that same year, Dawson was named NFHS Louisiana Coach of the Year and McDonald's Shreveport Times Sports team of the Year. During Dawson's tenure as Evangel head coach, the Eagles ranked sixth nationally in developing NFL players.

Dawson earned All-District Coach of the Year every season from 2013-19. He received All-City Coach of the Year in Shreveport in 2015. As a Defensive Coordinator at Evangel, Dawson was known as an innovative play caller, developing the Dawson tilt technique on the defensive front and leading defensive units to No. 1 rankings in Louisiana in 2010, 2016, and 2017.

He also developed four Army All-Americans in Jermauria Rasco, Jerry Tillery, Micah Baskerville, and Davin Cotton. Tillery was also was selected in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Chargers. His program also produced the 2019 Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year in Ar'Darius Washington and the 2021 Big 12 Championship MVP QB Blake Shapen. Dawson has coached and developed several Division 1 athletes and 10 NFL Players.

In March of 2020, Dawson joined the Tulane University football staff as defensive line coach, where he made an immediate impact and was a finalist for FootballScoop's 2020 National Defensive Line Coach of the Year. Dawson's defensive line combined for 222 tackles, 45.5 tackles for loss, and 24.5 sacks. Tulane's 8.4 tackles for loss per game led the American Athletic Conference and ranked sixth nationally, while the Green Wave's 3.1 sacks per game also led the league and ranked 13th overall. In 2021 the Tulane defense was #2 in the AAC in sacks per game (2.8) and #6 in rushing yards allowed. In 2021, Dawson recruited seven highly touted defensive linemen to the Tulane squad and mentored two All Americans and NFL draft picks, Cam Sample and Patrick Johnson. While at Tulane, Dawson was selected for the NFL's highly competitive Bill Walsh Coaching Fellowship Program with the Los Angeles Rams as a defensive line coaching intern. Under the leadership of 2021 NFL Defensive Line Coach of The Year Eric Henderson, Dawson had the opportunity to learn at the highest level of football, obtaining extensive knowledge from several notable NFL coaches.

Moses Jr. was named head coach of the Centenary men's and women's track and field and cross country programs in October, 2021. Moses Jr., a native of Baton Rouge who attended Baker High School, is a 1994 graduate of LSU where he was a member of a pair of national championship teams with the Tigers in 1988 and 1989. Moses Jr. comes to Centenary from Simpson University in Redding, Calif. where he served as head cross country and track and field coach and strength and conditioning coach.

He was previously at Xavier University in New Orleans from 2004-18 were he enjoyed annual success at the NAIA school including being named Gulf Coast Athletic Conference (GCAC) Coach of the Year 12 times. Moses Jr. was the head coach at division 1 Charleston Southern University from 2001-03 where he produced 13 all-conference student-athletes. He led Xavier to 23 conference championships and was twice named Louisiana Coach of the Year. He also coached at Independence Community College, a NJCAA institution in Independence Kansas, from 2000-01.

Moses helped guide sophomore Devante' Jack (Jena, La.) this past season as Jack splashed onto the national scene as he ran a conference-record time of 1:52.37 in the men's 800-meters at the 2022 SCAC Championships in San Antonio in April. Jack became the first Centenary student-athlete ever to win an event at the SCAC Championships and bested several athletes from Division I schools. At the time, his 1:52.37 was the 15^th-fastest time run all season in division III. He recorded two individual wins, a runner-up finish, four top-10 finishes, and was named the SCAC Men's Track Athlete of the Week following his win at the conference meet. He was also named First-Team All-SCAC and the 2022 SCAC Newcomer of the Year.

The Louisiana High School Coaches Association (LHSCA) was established in 1938 as a sub-entity of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) in order to help maintain the highest possible standards in athletics and the coaching profession in Louisiana high schools. Since LHSCA's creation, the association has grown to include approximately 12,000 Louisiana high school coaches, administrators, athletic directors and superintendents.

The mission of the Louisiana High School Coaches Association is to "elevate coaches beyond the game."

To read more on the LHSCA or see the clinic schedule: https://www.lhsaa.org/lhsca

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