- Athletics
- Faculty/Staff Spotlight
- Upper School
Congratulations to our varsity soccer coach, Jen Dunn ’04, for being selected as the Union County Conference Coach of the Year for 2024. NJ.com announced the award in December.
Dunn received the award after her first year as head coach for The Royals, during which she mentored the team to a stellar season that included several major post-season upsets on the road to the NJSIAA Final Round of the North Non-Public A championship.
Though Oak Knoll was ultimately defeated 3-0 in that matchup, the team made it to the finals after beating defending champion Mount St. Dominic. The Royals also toppled powerhouse teams such as Bayonne, Immaculata, and West Orange en route to the finals.
“When Oak Knoll was at its best, it could play with anyone this year,” said Brandon Gould, sports reporter for NJ Advance Media.
“We play teams of the highest caliber in our regular league games,” said Coach Dunn. “We’re challenged by these big sports schools with lots of depth to their rosters.”
Oak Knoll completed the season with 15 wins to six losses.
Dunn was a highly accomplished soccer player during and after her Oak Knoll years. While on the varsity squad at Oak Knoll, The Star-Ledger selected her as Player of the Year in 2003. Beginning in her junior year of high school, she made the national pool and joined the U19 national team that went on to play in the World Cup in Thailand in the fall of 2024. While playing overseas that fall, she took a hiatus from the University of Virginia but re-joined the team for competitions in 2005.
After graduating from UVA, Dunn received her master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from Boston College. She spent several years working and coaching in the New York City area before moving back to New Jersey with her husband and starting a family consisting of two 10-year-old twins, an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old.
When asked about the meteoric rise of women’s soccer over the last several decades, she cites the sport’s ubiquity in colleges and universities and the increasingly widespread elevation of skillsets among practitioners. “The sheer athletic ability and technicality of students at Oak Knoll is remarkable,” Dunn explained. “The level overall has just tremendously improved. I’m very impressed with the soccer background most players already have who come into Oak Knoll.”
As for her ambition to evolve the soccer program at Oak Knoll in the years ahead, she plans to build on what is already a tradition of excellence in Oak Knoll athletics, focusing on the ingrained competitiveness and desire for constant improvement she sees in her players.
Perhaps a quality that led to her recognition as Coach of the Year is her close partnership with her players. Dunn explained that she tries to be non-reactive during competitions and respects the player’s individual choices and efforts during match play.
“It’s a game that involves about a million different decisions on the field,” she explained. “A coach can insert some strategy, but the players play the game on the field and have to make split decisions at every turn. I’m not joysticking their movements. I think I fundamentally want my players to know that I trust them to trust themselves. They will inevitably make mistakes, the key is not to dwell but to keep playing, keep trying, and do better next time.
“What I want for Oak Knoll soccer is for it to be a force to be reckoned with,” Dunn related. “I want the players’ attitude to be that they can beat any team on any given day and for our players to have an unwavering confidence that inspires respect in the conference.”
After only one season as Head Coach, Dunn is well on the way to achieving that goal.
- Athletics
- Faculty/Staff Spotlight
- upper school