Passion for the game, life experiences and family drive Cameron Dollar
by Dan Raley
New head coach of men's basketball, Cameron Dollar.
Photos by Chris Joseph Taylor
Sports writer Dan Raley, who spent more than 29 years covering the sports scene for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, profiles Seattle U’s new head coach of men’s basketball, Cameron Dollar, and gleans insight into the man tasked with cultivating a team for success at the highest level of college play—Division I.
Cell phone pressed to his ear, Cameron Dollar crosses the intersection of 14th Avenue and East Cherry Street and enters the Connolly Center in full stride, chatting so loudly his high-pitched voice, mixed with a hint of a Southern accent, can be heard a half-block away.
This is someone expected to take his considerable charm and vitality and use it to elevate Seattle University’s men’s basketball program to national prominence.
This is a 33-year-old man, born in Atlanta, educated in Los Angeles and anchored to Seattle, whose résúme doesn’t begin to tell his story. His life-changing milestones remind one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: In order, the former University of Washington assistant coach and now head coach of SU’s men’s basketball has persevered in the face of adversity. He's overcome obstacles to become a success story.
“This job is a challenge for him and he realizes that,” says Huskies men’s basketball Coach Lorenzo Romar, Dollar’s employer for the past decade at two schools. “His whole life has been a challenge. Nothing has come easy for him.”
Dollar’s life has fluctuated wildly between highs and lows. As a student-athlete, he helped his team to a national championship at UCLA, proving to be the difference between a title-game victory and defeat. And he accepted the challenge to take a Seattle University program from the ground level and make it highly competitive in Division I again.
“I don’t do this for fame or fortune; I do it for the kids and to be as competitive as I can be,” Dollar says. “Is it a hard road here? Is it a long road? It can be. Those are the realities.”
Seattle U basketball and its winning coach seem made for each other. Cameron Dollar couldn’t be more ready.
No event in his life has been more cold and cruel for him than the death of his mother in 1980. He was four years old when Faye Dollar left the family’s southwest Atlanta home to buy some milk and never returned. A few days later, she was discovered downtown in the trunk of a car, murdered. The crime has never been solved.
From that day on, Cameron and his older brother, Chad, became full-fledged coach’s sons. They were raised solely by their father, Donald, one of Atlanta’s most prominent high school basketball coaches and more recently, an assistant coach at the University of West Georgia. They were put on the fast track to become coaches themselves, with Chad Dollar now an Arkansas State assistant.
“I was really hard and tough on them; I didn’t want them missing school or making any excuses because their mother was gone,” explains Donald Dollar, 69, who will be coaching alongside his son at SU as an assistant. “Cameron never asked about it. I don’t know if he was cognizant of it or didn’t want to be, but he didn’t let on.”
Cameron was almost too young to comprehend the loss of his mother. Plus, he says, his father did his best to fill the role of two parents and minimize the void.
“I remember the funeral and that’s maybe the only image I have of that,” he says. “My dad did a great job of roping us in. Because of how my dad was I didn’t feel I was missing something.”
Family is important to Dollar. It’s not unusual for him to greet his wife, Maureen, and three young children, Jalen, Jason and Giselle in his corner office and sneak away with them for a short break at a nearby park. Dollar wants to create a family atmosphere at SU, similar to what Dean Smith instilled at North Carolina, where former players feel compelled to hang onto the program. The hiring of his father, known as “Pops,” to coach with him, helps toward this goal. Father-son coaching teams, in which the younger man is the boss, are rare for Division I teams. Auburn Coach Jeff Lebo has his dad, Dave, on his staff. New Mexico Coach Steve Alford employed his father, Sam, at his previous stop, Iowa.
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