New Head Football Coach: Byron Dawson
Photo by Centenary College Marketing & Communication
On March 30th, 2022, Centenary introduced their new football coach, Byron Dawson. In November of 2021, the school announced football’s return and unveiled plans for the next few years on how the program will get started. The soccer and lacrosse fields are to be converted into a football field able to host events for all three sports, and the team will begin their Junior Varsity (J.V.) season in 2023 followed quickly by their official start in 2024 Centenary projects.
In order to get these plans to run as planned Centenary acted swiftly to interview and select their Head football coach. Dawson attended Shreveport’s local Evangel Christian Academy followed by four years at LSU in Baton Rouge. During Coach Dawson’s school career, he won many accolades in football including: winning the SEC Championship in 2001 on LSU’s team, named USA Today High School All American Defensive MVP for Louisiana, and recording 86 tackles and four sacks at LSU. This highly qualified candidate has been working as a coach now for over 15 years at his alma mater in Shreveport, Tulane University, and more. We are excited to welcome him to Centenary and to lead our new football program in the right direction.
Centenary has already gathered $1.25 million in support of this program. They hope that football will open the floodgates to welcome more students on campus, so we can move from averaging around 500-600 students each year into the thousands once the program really gets started. Obviously with how the campus is set up right now, the school would not be able to support that many students and still require that you live on campus all four years. Despite some students' dislike of the football program, they may be excited to hear this could provide either: 1). The option for upperclassmen to live off campus, or 2). Newer dorms could be built on campus to accommodate the load. The money donated to the program could also be beneficial around school in a number of ways to have larger celebrations that already circulate around a football program schedule, such as Centenary’s Homecoming that happens each fall during said sport’s season.
The only thing that I hope for students in the coming years is that football does not take away from our countless, unique sports rarely seen at other schools of our size. Centenary has told the community not to fret over this matter; the football program is projected to only enhance what we already have, not to take away. Athletes and non-athletes alike at Centenary have a love for the school’s sports programs. There is hope that with Coach Dawson’s help, football can be used to further enhance the school’s spirit.
Make sure to check out @Centenary_MaroonMob on Instagram if you want to get in on all the fun in the next few years supporting our athletes at their games. And keep coming back to The Conglomerates Sports section for all new updates on Centenary Athletics.