Long-Time Wrestling Assistant Coach Named to NWCA Division III Hall of Fame
SPRINGFIELD, MA (07/12/2022) The National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) announced the list of Hall of Fame inductees for the Class of 2022 naming long time Western New England University Wrestling assistant coach Dwayne Dawson as an honoree.
Following the 2021-2022 season, Dawson closed out his 32nd year as an assistant coach with the Golden Bears. Over his historic career with Western New England University (WNE), Dawson has coached 11 NCAA All-Americans and the institution’s first NCAA National Champion (John Boyle in 2019). Dawson has also seen more than 100 Western New England University student-athletes earn regional and All-New England honors. Dawson also served as the head coach at West Springfield High School prior to his move to WNE. In addition to his work in coaching, Dawson has also been involved in officiating wrestling at both the high school and collegiate levels for more than 30 years, working numerous Massachusetts State Championships and officiating some of the biggest prep and public high school New England Championships in his career. Dawson was honored in 2009 as the MIWA Hall of Fame Official of the Year and was inducted into the City of Springfield, Massachusetts Sports Hall of Fame in 2016. He was most recently inducted into the New England Wrestling Association’s Hall of Fame in 2020.
Dawson is one of six honorees as part of the class of 2022 Hall of Fame induction. Dawson joins John Barrick (Division III Wrestling Contributor), Josh Chelf (University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse), Florian Ghinea (Montclair State University), Marcus Levesseur (Augsburg University), and Nik Lewandowski (Augsburg University) in 2022. The Division III Hall of Fame Class of 2022 will be inducted at the NWCA National Convention on July 30, 2022, at the Ponte Vedra Beach, Sawgrass Marriott Golf Resort & Spa in Florida.
Western New England University (WNE) is a private, nationally ranked, comprehensive institution with a focus on preparing work-ready and world-ready graduates. Founded in 1919 in Springfield, Massachusetts as a division of Northeastern College, WNE’s 215-acre suburban campus serves more than 3,700 students, including over 2,500 full-time undergraduates. More than 47,000 alumni have earned degrees through its 90+ undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs at Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering, and Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and School of Law. Students come from 39 U.S. states and territories and 23 countries. Of 45,104 living alumni, 30% remain within the region, residing in the four Western Massachusetts counties and northern Connecticut.
WNE is classified among nationally ranked universities in US News and World Report, and among the Top 100 Undergraduate Engineering programs, and in the Doctoral/Professional Universities category in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
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Editor’s note: All University news releases are available online at www.wne.edu/news