A Community and Its Coach
Rich Dunn has coached wrestling at Ross High School (OH) for 33 years. It's taken a personal battle for Dunn to learn how much he means to his community.
Rich Dunn is a math teacher at Ross High School in Ross, OH. Though Dunn has been the Rams’ wrestling coach for 33 years, his first professional job was as an engineer. For 11 years, Dunn juggled his daily work duties in order to arrive on time each day for practice.
A little over a decade into coaching, a desire to further impact lives guided Dunn to leave his former, more lucrative career. He entered the classroom as a full-time teacher 22 years ago.
“I worked at Champion (Paper) and did several jobs, from project engineer, maintenance engineer, maintenance manager and production manager. I’d reached a point where I’d basically done everything. I wanted to make more of a difference in other people’s lives over climbing the corporate ladder. It was time to leave.
“And God opened doors.”
He’s coached Ross to 348 dual meet wins, twice making it to the State Team Duals Final Four. His teams have won 10 league titles, 12 sectional titles, produced 73 state qualifiers and 24 state placers. In 2019, he coached Alex Coleman to a state championship in the 285 lb weight division.
While his family, teaching and coaching are recipients into which Dunn has poured himself, they are extensions of Dunn’s primary devotion.
“Faith has always been most important for me,” he said.
Dunn cites his upbringing, where Sunday school, church attendance and service to others were ways of life. Even when no longer under the daily influence of his parents, Dunn nurtured his beliefs by taking theology courses and involving himself in service-oriented activities.
“The way we were raised, life is about serving,” he said. “You’re feeding somebody, you’re mowing their grass. While in college (Cedarville University), I was able to go to the Ohio Veterans Children’s Home in Xenia. It was kind of like a Big Brother, Big Sister thing.
“Seeing the disadvantages of a lot of people opened my eyes to so much we take for granted.”
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That he speaks of the needs of others, especially now, is telling.
Early this year, Dunn was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood borne plasma cancer with no known cure.
Multiple hospital visits with his wife, Angie, and screenings and conversations of most-hopeful, medical action plans have become Dunn’s new normal. So, too, have bouts of crippling back pain, disabling him from the active life to which he was accustomed. Once simple, daily tasks - like putting on socks and shoes - have become gauntlets of shooting pain. Severe sciatica and compression vertebrae fractures, due to the pressure of tumors on bones, have, at various junctures, debilitated Dunn.
He says he’s at peace with all the known and unknowns his diagnosis has ushered into his life. With Dunn, it’s believable, even while he admits to navigating valleys of shadow and doubt.
“There have been moments,” he said. “When I think of my relationships, my family, that’s what really hits me. Knowing there will be times when I won’t be there for my kids, whether it’s because I’m disabled and can’t get out and do normal things with them, wrestle with them, crawl underneath the car to change a transmission with them.
“And that I may not be there at all when they have kids.”
Other-mindedness, however, pervades most of Dunn’s concerns. He hurts, knowing news of his diagnosis hurts others.
“I have family in New Jersey - and this is hard for me to articulate - but, a lot of my sorrow is the pain I’m causing them. I had to make that call to the family groups. Even though I’ve come to peace with this, I had to give them the news.”
Word of Dunn’s plight has been a blow for southwestern Ohio coaches, too.
“Even though I’m older than him, Rich is one of those people you say to yourself, ‘That is how I want to be when I finally grow up,’” said longtime Mason High School coach, Vance Reid. “He does everything the right way.
“When I think of coaches I’d like my own kids to wrestle for, Rich was always one of those guys on that list. With Rich, everything was always class; everything was always care.
“Kids become better people because of their time with him.”
Former Moeller High School coach, Jeff Gaier, echoed Reid’s praise.
“He’s always been a class act,” he said. “We’re in one of the most impactful sports, and kids need guys like Rich to pass that on. It was always obvious Ross kids loved wrestling, and it was obvious they loved him.”
Gaier found it easy to root for Dunn’s grapplers.
“We weren’t often in direct competition, being in different divisions, but if one or a few of his kids did well, whether at the state tournament or wherever, you were always genuinely happy because you knew their success made Rich happy. You rooted for Ross kids because you root for Rich.”
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Since his diagnosis, moments of downtime have been both curse and consolation.
“I’d get caught up in Google searches,” Dunn said. “And there’s nothing good that I’d find regarding the type of cancer I have.
“But, not long after I was diagnosed, our school experienced back to back to back tragedies that put what I’m going through in perspective.”
In May, three separate tragedies struck the Ross Local School District and community with surreal, wrenching blows. On May 5, Ross Middle School teacher Nicole Pelton and her husband, Patrick, were killed in a head-on collision. Nine days later, senior Brayden Bastin was paralyzed from the waist down when his vehicle rolled over after going off road into a ditch. On May 26, junior Briana Tzeiranakis died when the car in which she was a passenger hit a utility pole.
“(Bastin’s) older brother wrestled for me,” said Dunn. “I’m 60 years old. I’ve lived with no restrictions my entire life. He’s now going to be restricted his whole life. A week later, one of our middle school teachers and her husband were instantly killed. Then two of our students driving through town hit a pole, and (Tzeiranakis) was killed.”
“It hit me that there’s no reason to think only of myself and what I’m going through. God has given me peace.”
Dunn references scriptural passages that have helped.
“God has drawn me to a very familiar verse commonly proclaimed by athletes,” he said. “Philipians, 4:13. ‘I can do all things through Christ, the one who strengthens me.’
“But, God directed me to what Paul says in the previous verse, ‘I have experienced times of need and times of abundance. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of contentment, whether I go satisfied or hungry, have plenty or nothing.”
Dunn references Ross students fighting cancer, too. These days, Kenley Commins and RJ Almond are nearer to his thoughts.
“I’ve had 60 good years,” he said. “Kenley and RJ, they’re so young.”
Dunn’s next hurdle is getting through kyphoplasty, a surgery in which bone cement is injected into his vertebral compression fractures to help alleviate pain. He’s hopeful.
He’s grateful, too.
“You know, if all this wouldn’t have happened, I wouldn’t know the impact I’ve had on former students and wrestlers who have reached out,” he said. “There isn’t a day that goes by without a gift card arriving, or letters, emails or text messages, and it really, you know…”
Dunn paused.
“It really hits you in the heart.”
Members of the Southwestern Ohio Wrestling Coaches Association have organized the Rich Dunn Benefit Golf Outing to be held on August 25 at Pebble Creek Golf Club, shotgun start at 8:30am (check in at 7:30am). Proceeds will go to assisting Dunn, his wife, Angie, and their three children (Ella, Caleb and Joshua) as they go through Rich’s battle together.
If you’d like to sponsor a hole or donate to this benefit in any way, contact Scott Robbins at stallman80@gmail.com (or 513-479-9403) or Zach Canta at zach.kanta@gmail.com (or 513-805-3352).
Donations can be mailed to: Rich Dunn Benefit Golf Outing, 6394 Chablis Drive, Hamilton, OH 45011
Sponsors:
Atlantic Sign Company: www.atlanticsigncompany.com
Industrial Solutions Authority: www.isaelectric.com
Pebble Creek Golf Club: www.pebblecreekgc.com
Dr. Michael Baria, Team Physician, Ohio State Wrestling:
Dr. E John Rewwer, DDS, 513-923-3839
Chair Force 1 Foundation: www.chairforce1foundation.com (Donated sponsorship)