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Legendary Tennis Coach Anthony Dodgen has died

Published

8 hours ago

January 20, 2025

Former Alcorn State University Head Tennis Coach Anthony Dodgen has passed away. The news of Dodgen’s death came over the weekend when multiple people posted about the legendary coach.

Dodgen spent 21 years as Alcorn’s Head Tennis Coach and spent seven years as St. Aloysius Head Tennis Coach and 10 years at Chamberlain-Hunt Academy.

Anthony Dodgen completed a historic 21-year career at Alcorn State University as the head men’s and women’s tennis coach. He retired upon completion of the 2018 season.

Dodgen was a 12-time SWAC Coach of the Year winner which is the most of any coach in Alcorn history for any sport. He won 12 SWAC Championships which is third-most in school history among all coaches.

Dodgen coached the Braves to eight SWAC titles and the Lady Braves to four. The men won in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2014. The Lady Braves won in 2000, 2001, 2008 and 2016.

Starting in 2007, Alcorn won five tennis championships in six seasons.

Dodgen also claims two more championships personally including the 2006 men’s title and the 2015 women’s crown. In those seasons, Alcorn fell in the championship match but the winning team later had to vacate the title due to NCAA sanctions.

Alcorn reached the finals of the SWAC Championships in 18 of his 21 seasons at the helm.

Dodgen said his most memorable championship was won by the women in 2008. Led by a dominating Swetha Devaraj at number 1 singles, the Lady Braves snapped a four-year streak of falling in the finals and broke through with a five-hour victory over Southern.

In addition to coaching tennis, Dodgen worked in the mathematics department at Alcorn for 21 years.

Dodgen came to Alcorn in the fall of 1996. He had spent the previous 17 seasons as a high school coach including seven years at St. Aloysius High School in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and 10 years at Chamberlain-Hunt Academy in Port Gibson, Mississippi. Dodgen played baseball at Wingfield High School in Jackson, Mississippi.

He went on to graduate from Southern Miss with a bachelor’s in mathematics in 1984 and did not start playing tennis until he was 22 years old. Dodgen earned his master’s in education/mathematics from Mississippi College in 1994.