Dennis retires after 20 years at Ohio State

Director of Monitor and Area and Cross Nation Karen Dennis will retire after 20 seasons with the Buckeyes, the Ohio State athletic division introduced Monday.

Dennis accomplished a 45-year profession as a school coach with the conclusion of the observe and subject NCAA Championships at which 22 Buckeyes competed Wednesday by way of Saturday. Based on a launch, Dennis stated she hoped her retirement wasn’t a shock when she revealed the information to her crew Monday.

“I’ve coached for a very long time and there are nonetheless issues in life I’d love to do,” Dennis stated within the launch. “I’m actually grateful for this occupation, and I need to categorical my gratitude to the numerous assistant coaches and help employees which have shared and sweated alongside me on this unimaginable journey.”

Ohio State didn’t announce plans for its subsequent head teaching or director search within the launch.

Her profession at Ohio State — and collegiate teaching — is adorned. Dennis led the Buckeyes to males’s and girls’s outside Massive Ten crew championships this season, which is the primary time in program historical past each got here in the identical season and the primary time achieved by a Massive Ten program in 25 years.

Dennis additionally became the first in Massive Ten historical past to brush each males’s and girls’s outside coach of the yr, in keeping with a launch Could 18. She earned Massive Ten observe and subject coach of the yr 12 occasions, and her 12 Massive Ten championships are essentially the most all-time for an Ohio State feminine coach, tying for third amongst all Buckeye coaches.

“I can’t thank Karen Dennis sufficient for her friendship, her mentorship and the love she has for her student-athletes and Ohio State athletics,” athletic director Gene Smith stated  in therelease. “We have now been extremely lucky to have her main our applications.”

Based on the discharge, Dennis was inducted into the U.S. Monitor & Area and Cross Nation Coaches Affiliation Coaches Corridor of Fame in 2018 and the Ohio State Athletics Corridor of Fame in 2020. She additionally served as head coach of the U.S. ladies’s observe and subject crew through the 2000 Sydney Olympics in addition to  spending time as an assistant coach on the 1995 World Championships in Sweden, the 1991 Pan American Video games in Cuba and 1989 World College Championships in Germany all with Crew USA.

Dennis coached a complete of 140 Massive Ten champions whereas head coach at Ohio State and Michigan State. She coached a complete of eight Olympians and as many NCAA Nationwide Champions, with the most recent coming Friday as senior Adelaide Aquilla defended her shot put title by breaking the school file with a throw of 19.64 meters, in keeping with a launch Friday.

The retiring Ohio State head coach first arrived on the college in 2002 as an assistant coach for the ladies’s crew — turning into head coach in 2006 — earlier than incomes a promotion to her newest title in 2014.