Signature: Dawson Tayrone Odums

Age: 40
Occupation: Head football coach, Southern University
Hometown: Shelby, North Carolina

Southern University Head Football Coach Dawson Odums never intended to be a collegiate coach. He was working as a substitute teacher and bus driver at his alma mater, Crest High School, and working as an assistant football coach and basketball coach when one day rode he rode his bicycle past a game in which the Gardner-Webb College coaches were playing. One of them recognized him and told him there was an opening for a defensive-line coach.

“Why not?” he wondered.

That was the beginning of a coaching resume that saw subsequent stops at Georgia Southern, Clark, Bethune-Cookman, North Carolina A&T, and finally Southern, when he was hired in 2011 by then-Head Coach Stump Mitchell.

But when Mitchell was fired just two games into the 2012 season, Odums, then defensive coordinator, was promoted.

Last year he led the team to a 9-4 record and was named SWAC coach of the year.

Off the field, he’s an avid golfer, shooting between 84 and 94 he says.

“Depends on what day it is and which way the wind’s blowing,” he says with a smile.

When he gets away from the office, Odums spends time with his family: his wife of 16 years, Audrey, and young daughters Jasmine, who is 11, and Jaiden, who turns 3 this month.

Odums believes in what he calls a “keep it simple” philosophy. Last year, this outlook helped the Jaguars win their first SWAC title in 10 years. The impressive championship trophy sits on an end table in his Mumford Stadium office.

“I think one of the reasons we’re successful is I take a high-school approach,” Odums says. “In high school, you don’t have your kids a whole lot, so you can’t give them a whole lot of information. We only have these guys for 20 hours a week. I believe in doing ten things a hundred times, not a hundred things ten times.”