Coach leaves to spend more time with family

Rob Dulin looked at his runners and began to utter the words no one would see coming.

He was about to inform them of his decision to step down as Brentsville's cross country coach, leaving a position he had held since 1991 and one which he used to turn Brentsville into an elite cross country program.

"It was not a day I was looking forward to," Dulin said. "A lot of kids have given the better part of their high school lives to our program. You feel you're abandoning them."

In calling it "one of the hardest decisions I've made in my life," Dulin said he was leaving to spend more time with his family.

"I felt it was the right time," Dulin said. "My kids are at an age where they're older now and I want to be able to be there for them."

Darrell Earman, who coached Brentsville's track team in during the 2007-08 and 2009-10 indoor track seasons, will succeed Dulin as Brentsville's cross country coach.

The feeling of stepping aside came to Dulin before the 2009 cross country season. But he wanted to wait until after the season to inform his runners and their parents.

"I didn't want the season to be about me," Dulin said. "The toughest part for the kids was the shock and the announcement."

Dulin, a former News & Messenger athlete of the year, graduated from Potomac High School in 1986 and entertained the thought of coaching tennis or basketball.

Those plans changed when then-Brentsville activities director Sonny Hagy hired Dulin to coach cross country. The former tennis and basketball athlete stepped into his first coaching position and developed a passion for a sport where he would be successful.

Dulin has coached Brentsville to 24 district titles and 20 regional titles.

From 1995-2001, Brentsville won a Virginia High School League record seven straight Group A girls' cross country state titles.

The boys' team won the Group A 2001 state title.

Success continued when the school moved to Group AA in 2003.

Brentsville's boys' won the Group AA state championship from 2004-07. Pat Eggleston led Brentsville's '04 state team by winning the Group AA race.

The Tigers also won the 2005 girls' Group AA title and finished as runner-up in 2004 and 2006.

Dulin's success as a coach did not stop at the state level. He has coached five nationally ranked high school teams and founded three local youth running camps whose participation has included over 300 runners.

But to Dulin, races became second to his objective of influencing teenagers.

"You're helping a kid develop," Dulin said. "You want to develop a positive mental attitude and set goals."

Along the way, Dulin gathered tips from former area coaches Bill Stearns and Dave Davis to improve his coaching expertise.

"Prince William County has an amazing group of coaches," Dulin said. "You had Bill Stearns, Dave Davis, Jim Rodgers, who used to coach at Woodbridge and Jeff Custer at Gar-Field. They're the cream of the crop in the state.

"Those guys had much more experience than I did. What I enjoyed was being able to pick their brains and go to every coaching clinic I could go to."

Dulin also coached Brentsville's track teams for 16 years before leaving that post in 2008 to focus on his duties as president of The Running Store, an establishment in Gainesville he presides over along with Brentsville assistant track coach Jason Grant.

Dulin will continue working at The Running Store.

He does not envision a return to coaching in the near future, but will still be present at any future cross country meets Brentsville has.

"I'll help out with events," he said.

Staff writer Robert Daski can be reached at 703-878-8049.