On Monday night after the Crothersville Community School Corp. board of trustees made his hire official as the next athletic director for the high school, Jacob Dunn slipped away for a private moment with his grandparents.
Grateful to the couple who helped raise him, Dunn visited Scottsburg Cemetery, where they are buried, to share the news that he had achieved one of the great goals in his life.
“This is what I always wanted,” Dunn said.
After working as a basketball team manager in high school and college and then a coach at Scottsburg, Dunn aspired to become an administrator running his own athletic department.
By Tuesday morning, he was filling out paperwork to start his new job in the role as head of the Tigers’ sports operations.
Dunn, 30, who attended Vincennes University and Indiana State University, was a teacher and coach in Scottsburg, where he grew up.
Those were boxes he wanted to check, as well, before getting the chance to supervise an athletic operation. When approval came at the meeting Monday, Dunn said it was “very emotional.”
He was nervous, at first, just because he knew the personnel moment was at hand, but at 9 p.m., he was at the cemetery, visiting the graves of his grandmother, Helen Cumbee, and his grandfather, Danny.
“My grandmother was a big Scottsburg sports supporter,” Dunn said.
“My grandfather was one of my father figures,” Dunn said of his devotion to Danny Cumbee. “He was always pushing me to reach my limits.”
His grandfather, who passed away last August, always encouraged him, and both grandparents would have been very proud Dunn was selected for this position, he said.
Crothersville, which also has vacancies for a boys basketball coach and a principal, has been without an athletic director for a few months. Dunn’s predecessor, Gregory Kilgore, 52, is facing two felony charges in a pending case. He was charged with possession of child pornography and child solicitation.
Crothersville’s sports program consists of cross country, boys golf, volleyball, basketball, baseball and track and field.
School is scheduled to begin for the fall of 2020 on Aug. 3.