St. Joseph-Ogden grad lands AD job at Salt Fork

On the Move! Following the rise of successful members from our community
In 2011, Dustin Dees decided to further his education to obtain a Master’s in Education Administration from Eastern Illinois University. The move paid off last month when the 2004 St. Joseph-Ogden High School graduate assumed the role of Assistant Principal and Athletic Director at Catlin High School last month.

Before moving into his administrative role at the high school and as AD, Dees was a physical education teacher and coach at Tuscola High School.

"I felt like it would open the door for future opportunities to work with students, teachers, and coaches in an educational leaders role," he said. "I am grateful for all my experiences as a teacher and coach to this point. I owe a lot to some great communities and school systems such as Decatur, Monticello, Bismarck - Henning, and Tuscola. These places provided me with the experience I needed to pursue my dream of working in education administration."

He is grateful for the opportunities and the individuals who mentored him leading him to land his position at the Vermilion County school. He counts himself lucky to have been able to coach basketball, track & field, and cross country in several great towns, with some great coaches, and more importantly, with several programs that had great student-athletes.

"I owe a lot to great high school head coaches and athletic directors such as Coach Mike Stephens at Bismarck-Henning, Coach Matt Franks when he was at Tuscola, Coach Dave Beery at Monticello, Ryan Hornaday, Tuscola’s AD, and Randy Moss when he was the AD at Monticello," he pointed out. "Being around coaches and athletic directors like these helped me learn what great coaching and leadership look like on a daily basis."

Dustin Dees celebrates an SJO touchdown during a 2003 football playoff game
Senior Dustin Dees celebrates a touchdown by running back Daniel Widick during SJO's Week 2 road playoff game against Carlinville. When asked what did he remember about the 2003 game he wrote:

"I remember that game being a thriller! We were down early and made a huge comeback to win 19-14! If I remember correctly Carlinville had been ranked in the 4A polls that year and dropped down to 3A for the playoffs. They were really good that year and had a better seed than us. Answering the bell and winning that game was huge."

The Spartans indeed defeated the Cavaliers, 19-14.

The most rewarding part of coaching for the former Spartan who played football and basketball at SJO, is watching kids improve.

"I feel like as a coach it’s always a personal goal each meeting with your team for each athlete to get better at something," he explained. "That may not always mean improvement in the sport you are coaching, the reward for me extends into witnessing athletes become better teammates, improving work ethic, and building strong character."

His fondest memories from high school was playing four years of Spartan football.

"There was always such a buzz around our football program. There was just something about the fall at SJO and high school football that gives me goosebumps thinking about it," he recounted. "When I reflect on those days I think about how lucky I was to learn from the great coaches I had like Dick Duval, Brad Allen, and Bob Glazier."

Off the gridiron, Dees said the quality of his education at SJO was invaluable.

"I also have great memories of having some of the best teachers," he add. "I always felt like we had extremely high quality teachers at SJO, many of who were also coaches, and that made going to school a lot of fun."

While at Tuscola, Dees helped obtain $5,000 matching grant with Tuscola CUSD #301 and the Tuscola Rotary to add "POLAR" heart rate tracking technology for the classroom. He also developed a dynamic physical education curriculum for kindergarten age students through the fourth grade and he led the way in the creation of a school wide wellness committee. He also created a school Health and Wellness Fundraiser called "Competing for Wellness".

Prior to taking teaching and coaching responsibilities at Tuscola High School, Dees spent two years in the Bismarck-Henning school district where he coached junior high basketball and track. He also developed a junior high "Student learning outcomes" for physical education program and built district approved Student Growth Assessment program.

Outsiders might look at his job as athletic director and assume that scheduling games and managing travel for teams under his umbrella might be one of the biggest challenges he will face in the new job, especially as the Vermilion Valley Conference adds three new programs after the break up of the Sangamon Valley Conference at the end of the coming school year. Dees said navigating the uncertainties as well as maintaining a safe athletic environment during the Coronavirus pandemic might be tougher.

"Scheduling with the new VVC should go pretty smoothly since the conference AD’s work well together," he said. "The challenge I see for next year will be accommodating and changing some of the things that we do for COVID-19."

Back together again! PBL joins the Illini Prairie Conference

By way of an overwhelming decision three days ago, Paxton-Buckley-Loda's bid to join downstate Illinois' premier prep sports conference was unanimously approved school administrators.

PBL, the league's first expansion team of sorts and the 11th school in the conference, joins St. Joseph-Ogden, Unity, Monticello, Rantoul, Prairie Central, Pontiac, Olympia, Central Catholic, St. Thomas More and Illinois Valley Central to make up the Illini Prairie Conference starting in the fall 2021.

Spartan defensive back Cole Berry picks off a pass intended for Panther receiver Matt Poll in the second half of their game on August 29, 2017. St. Joseph-Ogden, ranked #1 in Class 3A in The Associate Press pre-season poll, went on to defeat Paxton-Buckley-Loda in their non-conference battle, 27-7. The Spartans and Panthers will face each other once again under the Friday night lights starting in 2021. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

The Panther athletic program is a comfortable fit in the void that left the football schedules of nine teams open when St. Thomas More announced in January that they would move to 8-man competition. The Sabers will stay in the conference competing in all the remaining sports they offer.

Four schools applied for the opening after conference commissioner Brad Allen, a former teacher and coach at St. Joseph-Ogden High School, announced the IPC was looking for another program to help round out the conference football schedules.

The Panthers, with an enrollment of 472 this year, were already scouting a new conference affilation to compete with schools with similar number of students. They will leave the Sangamon Valley Conference after a 31-year run in a year from this May.

"I think the Illini Prairie has a lot to offer. A lot of conference schools has three levels of volleyball, freshman, junior varsity and varsity football and junior varsity and varsity baseball," PBL athletic director Brock Niebuhr told the Ford County Chronicle. "From that standpoint, I’m excited that we’ll be able to, hopefully, be able to step right in and compete. That’s what our goal is. I’m looking forward to doing that.”

From a scheduling standpoint, PBL was also an easy choice for many of the IPC athletic directors.

"For other sports, we will simply go to an 11 team conference schedule, kind of like what the Big Ten looked like from 1991-2011 when Penn State became the 11th conference team and before Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011," said St. Joseph-Ogden athletic director Justin Franzen. "We can now play 35 regular season volleyball, softball, and baseball games, 31 regular season boys and girls basketball games, 25 soccer matches. We already compete against PBL in almost every other sport that we offer, so adding a conference school just simply means that AD's need to adjust their schedules, which we do each year anyway."

Paul Bigham runs the ball for PBL
Panther running back Paul Bigham is brought down while running the ball in the second half. Bigham left the game after this play suffering a shoulder injury as he was brought down by the three Spartan defenders. Photo: PhotoNews Media/Clark Brooks

Head football coach Shawn Skinner noted the Panthers recent success on the gridiron, which includes qualifying for the Class 3A playoffs over the past five seasons, and the quality of their other their athletic programs such as basketball and cross country. Without a doubt PBL will raise the bar.

"Aside from football they compete well in all sports. I think it’s a solid fit for them to join the conference and maintain the high level of competitive balance in our league," Skinner pointed out. In regards to football he thinks PBL joining the conference is a great addition. "Their proximity is ideal and they are a similar school from a size standpoint."

St. Joseph-Ogden was able to fill the open week on Skinner's schedule relatively quickly inking a one-year deal with Nashville. With veteran quarterback Crayton Burnett coming back to lead the offense, the Spartans will open the 2020 season on road against last fall's 2A state runner-up.

Skinner said the Hornets will have "almost their entire starting team" back this fall.

"It will be a real challenge for us week one," Skinner added.

While SJO's open date was quickly filled in February, Franzen acknowledged some schools are still looking for a team to play.

Unity, one of the programs looking to replace the STM game, announced yesterday that they will travel 430 miles to Pierce City, Missouri, where they will play their week seven contest.



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