Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 4/7/24 – Staff Report
The lacrosse community is mourning the passing of Dan Dolphin, 71, a pioneer for Lehigh Valley lacrosse and coach of Allentown Central Catholic’s PIAA Class AA state championship team in 2021.
Coach Dolphin spent 14 years at Allentown Central Catholic after also coaching at Nazareth. He had a career record of 201-73 and retired the day after leading the Vikings to their 14-5 win over Mars in the 2021 title game, giving District 11 its first state crown.
Coach Dolphin started the first lacrosse program in Bethlehem, the Bethlehem Lacrosse Club. He coached at Nazareth and then at Central Catholic where he became the first Lehigh Valley coach to reach 200 career wins.
Coach Dolphin also started the Lehigh Valley Steel Lacrosse club, the first travel team in the region.
Coach Dolphin was the Morning Call’s Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2017 and was the Phillylacrosse.com Lehigh Valley/Northeast region Coach of the Year in 2021. He led ACC to the state quarterfinals in two other seasons, 2017 and 2018. He had been a Health and Physical Education teacher at Allentown Central Catholic.
Dolphin’s Vikings won five District 11 titles – in 2011 and 2012, then in 2017 and 2018 as well as this year. This ACC squad also won the East Penn Conference title and was the first squad – boys’ or girls’ – to reach the PIAA title game.
Coach Dolphin’s spring sport was actually baseball and he played at West Virginia University. He got into coaching lacrosse in his 30s because his son played. He took the head coaching job at Allentown Central Catholic when it was a club sport and took it to the varsity level and then to dominance in the Lehigh Valley.
“I was all set to retire from teaching and coaching last year, then the pandemic hit,” Dolphin said when he retired. ” In 2020, we knew we had a good team that could make a run at the state championship. I decided to stay one more year, as we were going to graduate only six players from that 2020 team, and we thought the 2021 team would be even better.”
