Dan Callahan, Dabney S. Lancaster Community College’s athletic director, envisions a bright future for Mountain Gateway Community College sports he hopes to expand from one to 12 teams during the next five years.
One of the new sports he plans to add is online gaming that will feature the Mountain Gateway Community College’s team competing with other community colleges’ teams in Madden Football/Rocket League and NBA 2K/League of Legends.
The son of Bob Callahan, a high school basketball coach from Cincinnati who coached Roger Bacon High School to the AAA state championship, Dan grew up in Cincinnati where Cathleen, his mother who is an English and special education teacher, continues to teach.
His job as athletic director at DSLCC is to grow the athletic program to accommodate both women and men, and after the name change takes place on July 1, he hopes to see the new teams the Roadrunners’ athletic program involve 60 athletes, up from the 19 who were members of the Roadrunners’ men’s basketball team.
Dan has six siblings, and his brother Steve played basketball for Dartmouth from 2001-2005.
After graduating from Colerain High School in 2005, Dan attended Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Ky. where he majored in physical education and served as the basketball manager from 2005-2010.
He earned a bachelor’s of arts degree in general studies from Mount Saint Joseph’s University in Cincinnati in 2011.
“I spent seven years as an assistant athletic director and teacher’s aide in the Hamilton City School System,” Dan remembered.
From 2017-2021, he was employed by Clark State Community College in Springfield, Ohio.
He noted, “There was a cutback on sports due to the pandemic in Ohio at the community college level.”
Dan continued, “I started looking for full-time employment, and on the Indeed website, I found the notification of this job opening.”
Christopher Parker, Dan’s friend who is the athletic director of Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, spoke highly about the Alleghany Highlands area, and Dan was recently hired to build the athletic program.
He plans to field men’s cross country and women’s cross country teams after adding women’s basketball.
He also plans to add the sports of men’s track and women’s track, men’s baseball and women’s softball teams, men’s volleyball and women’s volleyball squads and eventually men’s and women’s soccer teams.
Dan said, “Our five-year goal is to have between 180 and 200 athletes playing for Mountain Gateway.”
Immediately, women’s basketball will be added, and he has setup two camps for girls’ basketball on the 17th and 18th of June during which 40-minute running clock games will be played.
He also has plans to run two boys’ basketball camps on the 24th and 25th of June.
Dan remarked, ‘We will have non-scholarship athletes who can use Pell grants and G-3 initiative in Virginia.”
As for recruiting players, he plans to start with the surrounding five counties and eventually expand the area to distances that will take students up to two hours to drive to attend MGCC.
The banners with DSLCC written on them will be removed on July 1, and the plan is to auction off the banners to alumni and the school’s supporters.
Dan concluded, “If anyone wishes to contact me about our plan or to ask questions or get additional information, I am open to provide information and can be reached at (540) 863-2828 or by e-mailing me at dcallahan@dslcc.edu.”
As for facilities, he hopes to negotiate with those in charge of area facilities such as Casey Field to utilize what the area has rather than rely on securing funding to develop new facilities that would duplicate those already available that could be utilized.