The Little Giants’ football season is off to a hot start this season fueled by the hard-nosed running of Cole Dickerson ’28. After a close home opener against Hampden-Sydney College, Dickerson was lights out against Wittenberg University, and enjoyed the sights and sounds of Oberlin College in Ohio last week, where he did not touch the ball after the first quarter due to Wabash’s command of the game. Dickerson manages to get the ball moving at every facet of the position.
“He’s got speed to break away if he needs to, but really, it’s the punishing running and the strength and the yards after carry,” said Little Giants running backs coach Brian Baker-Watson. “[Dickerson] does a great job receiving the ball coming out of the backfield, so if it was baseball, you would call him that five-tool player. He adds dimensions to our offense because he’s got a lot of versatility to him.”
Dickerson’s role in the offense has greatly expanded already this season, reflected in his rushing and receiving yards per game nearly doubling. This is doubly impressive considering he has only seen the field in eight of the 12 quarters so far this season. The running back attributes much of his success in football to the program head coach Jake Gilbert ’98 has built in his first two years on campus. The most notable improvement, according to Dickerson, being the culture developed by Gilbert.
“Gilbert’s brought a lot to this program in terms of our culture within our team,” said Dickerson. “You can see it in our retention. Since he’s been coach this is the biggest roster we’ve had. We’ve started taking trips to different places just to make the away trips fun because those are five, six hour drives. Getting to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, or the “Shawhank Redemption” prison, just cool stuff like that to hang out with the team.”
Aside from developing a positive culture, the product on the field has improved. That’s due in part to a slew of hires made following Gilbert’s elevation to head coach. Players now receive more specialized coaching and attention for their specific specialty group.
“He’s brought a lot of detail oriented staff, versus before we were stretched a little thin with people having to coach multiple positions,” said Dickerson. “But now coaches can really focus on individual players, and it’s helped our culture where everyone just wants to improve.”
However, this was not the future that Dickerson had in mind when he initially considered Wabash, though his return to football was second nature.
“I got here because of wrestling; I wanted to do it out of high school and ended up here,” said Dickerson. “Out of all of the colleges I was looking at, in terms of education and tuition, it was pretty much a no-brainer. I got here and realized I still wanted to play football, so I joined the team. I fell in love with the football program, so I just stuck with that.”
Although Dickerson’s arrival was due to wrestling, football has always been in the picture. His high school career came with accolades from each sport. He earned a first team all-district and third team all-state honors for football and was a two time state qualifier for wrestling, placing seventh in the state during his senior year at 215 pounds. However, football is what runs through the Dickerson family.
“Ever since I was a kid, it was always football,” said Dickerson. “My dad was a football coach, my brother was [in football], we were all in sports, so it was a no-brainer. I was gonna play football. My dad says I could name all 32 NFL teams when I was like three. [My dad] let me practice with the kids even though I was younger. It’s because of my family that I fell in love with it.”
However he got into football and decided to play at Wabash, Little Giants’ fans are happy with how it worked out. With an North Coast Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Week award under his belt already this year, Dickerson seems primed to carry the Little Giants offense into a deep November run.