The New Berlin school board promoted assistant Robert Dunn as its next head football coach on Thursday, April 16.
It’s a new job title, but the 2016 North Mac graduate knows all that the craft entails from his 10 years of learning every nook and cranny.
He tested the coaching waters as early as 17 years old at the youth level before becoming an assistant at Jerseyville and Taylorville.
He rustled up more expertise as Taylorville’s girls varsity track coach before packing up for New Berlin, where he will continue to serve as the athletic department’s strength and conditioning coach.
“I was the head coach of like some eighth grade teams and seventh grade basketball and a JV head coach at one point,” Dunn said of his coaching origins. “I was like, ‘OK, I can handle all of this. But do I think I can handle all the little stuff that no one tells you about?’ But as I’ve grown and now I’ve been a varsity head track coach at Taylorville that was 35-40 girls, I had to step up my game there. I was like, ‘OK, this isn’t that bad.’ The next step is to be a varsity head coach for football, and I think I can handle it.”
Dunn has soaked up different insights and schemes as a player and coach. As a senior receiver and corner back, North Mac shifted to a spread under then-offensive coordinator Derek Smith and the Panthers finished the regular season undefeated. Smith later became the offensive coordinator at Williamsville.
Other influences include former North Mac coach J.D. Lorton and former Jerseyville coach Ric Johns in the triple option.
“He just showed me some things that I’m still going to use today, and he brought some different light to some offense and made me think a little bit different,” Dunn said of Smith. “Maybe at the time, I wasn’t thinking, ‘Man, I want to run this when I’m a head coach, but now that I’m sitting and finishing up my playbook, I’m like, ‘Oh wait, this is what we used to do. We can kind of incorporate that.’”
Dunn worked as a running backs coach under predecessor Trent Quarton in the 2025 season in which New Berlin narrowly missed the playoffs with a 4-5 mark. He embraces the challenges ahead in the Sangamo Conference.
“We’ve kind of got some new things coming into the summer that we’re going to try to do, not just only play football but be better people in the community and try to build this from the inside out,” Dunn said.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Meet the next football coach at New Berlin for 2026
Reporting by Bill Welt, Springfield State Journal-Register / State Journal-Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
