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Sept. 12, 2003
Virginia head cross country coach Jason Dunn has announced the hiring of Cavalier All-American Dawn Cleary as an assistant coach for the 2003-04 season. Cleary, who earned All-American honors in the steeplechase at the 2003 NCAA Championships, set the Virginia record en route to a sixth-place finish at the NCAA meet and later took fifth at the USA Track and Field Championships. Cleary, who was the first American ACC athlete to run under 10 minutes in the steeplechase, has been ranked in the top-10 in the United States in that event over the last two years. She won the ACC title in the steeple in 2003.
Cleary was also a member of the UVa cross country team all four years and helped Virginia to a ninth-place finish in 2001 and then was a part of the first UVa team to return to the NCAA meet in consecutive years since 1982.
A native of Woodbridge, Va., Cleary graduated from Virginia in 2002 with a degree in Sociology and completed her master’s degree from the Curry School of Education in 2003. She replaces former teammate Dana Coons, who has moved to Minnesota to pursue her running career with Team USA.