This article was originally published in the 2023 edition of Bluefield University’s Spire magazine.
Since 2010, when Bluefield University announced that it would reinstate its football program, the Rams have persevered through several peaks and valleys. BU, having now enjoyed this iteration of the program for a decade, has celebrated several achievements by these student-athletes made possible by their numerous supporters, professors, mentors, and coaches. The excellence of the coaching staff is not only recognized within the campus community but throughout the region with the Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) naming BU’s Dewey Lusk a co-Coach of the Year and BU’s Mike Ketchum a co-Assistant Coach of the Year.
Dewey joined the Rams family in 2017 as the institution’s tenth head football coach and the third since the football program restarted intercollegiate competition in 2012. Now preparing for his eighth season with the Rams, he brings to the table thirty-eight years of coaching experience in both baseball and football. In November 2022, he was named Football Coach of the Year by the AAC alongside James Miller of Reinhardt University. He sees coaching as an opportunity not only to push young men toward athletic excellence but excellence in every aspect of life. Wanting his athletes to handle adversity well, he says, “Football is just like a game of life; it’s not whether you’re going to get knocked down – because we’re all going to get knocked down – but it’s how you get back up.”
Taking late night calls from athletes and leading conversations on sportsmanship at practice, Dewey does everything he can to ensure his players succeed on and off the field. “It takes a whole village to raise a family,” he says, always being sure to applaud the rest of the coaching staff, as well as Emily Cook, BU’s Director of Counseling Services, and Reverend Brent Brown, the team’s chaplain, for guarding the students’ spiritual and mental well-being.
“Coach Lusk is a great guy to work for,” defensive coordinator Mike Ketchum said. “He gives you plenty of leeway to coach your position and to coach the kids, and he’s just been great to me.”
Dewey’s career began in 1985 at Gardner-Webb University. While completing a Master of Arts in Physical Education, he served as a graduate assistant. Since then, he has fulfilled his calling to help young adults become team players and well-rounded individuals through athletics. He explained, “Many, many years ago, I was sitting in church, and the preacher said, ‘God gave us all a gift when He put us on this earth.’ I’m sitting there wondering, ‘What’s my gift? What am I supposed to be doing?’ and it hit me like a ton of bricks: I’m supposed to help kids.”
He moved into the role of assistant football coach in 1987 before returning to his alma mater, Emory & Henry College, in 1990. There, he served as an assistant football coach, volunteering for the first year while coaching Abingdon High School’s football and junior varsity basketball teams. He became Emory & Henry’s offensive coordinator in 1991 and simultaneously served as the institution’s head baseball coach from 1992 to 2004. He was named Baseball Coach of the Year by the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) in 1998.
“If you ever run a baseball program by yourself, you learn a lot about coaching. People don’t realize how much is going on during a baseball game until you have to do it by yourself: call the pitches, arrange the defense, make pitching changes, get the field ready. I mean, there was a lot to it,” Dewey said.
The University of Virginia at Wise welcomed Dewey as associate head football coach and offensive coordinator in 2005 before making him head football coach in 2011. After a season as Webber International University’s offensive coordinator in 2016, Dewey made his way to Bluefield. In his first season, he guided the Rams to more wins than the team had in its previous five seasons combined. In 2018, he coached the first BU football player named an All-American Athlete, DaMarcus Wimbush.
Over the past seven seasons, Dewey has strived to be a good role model and make positive changes to the team’s culture, telling his players, “Be where you’re supposed to, be on time, do the right thing, know how to handle adversity, and be willing to help somebody when they need help.”
Dewey’s leadership has created a chain reaction, Mike explained, as upperclassmen have matured, and newcomers followed in their footsteps. “When the younger players see the older players going to class, doing their work, they’re going to follow suit, and that has really, really helped.”
The way Dewey and the other coaches have invested in their players has certainly paid off, as evidenced by the abundance of awards they received from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, American Football Coaches Association, and Virginia Sports Information Directors for both athletic and academic achievements.
Dewey believes his Coach of the Year award reflects the efforts of the team and the faculty and staff at Bluefield. He “can’t do it without” the institution’s athletic trainers and administration, as well as the admissions, financial aid, cafeteria, and Academic Center for Excellence (ACE) staff. Though he said the award came as a surprise, he named over a dozen players as reasons the Rams football program stands out.
Bluefield University can equip students to go further professionally, athletically, and spiritually because of our engaged alumni and friends, generous donors, and excellent faculty and staff. Mike Ketchum, the offensive line coach and run game coordinator for Rams football, shared, “I think one of the things about our coaching staff, the Athletic department in general, and of course, the entire faculty and staff is that everybody is a teacher, everybody wants to help. Everybody’s trying to help people succeed.”
In November 2022, he was named Assistant Football Coach of the Year by the AAC alongside Greg Blue of Reinhardt University.
Mike’s coaching career started at Eau Gallie High School, where he was the offensive line coach for the JV team in 1979. He served as a graduate assistant at the University of Florida during the 1983-1984 season while pursuing a master’s in education, helping bring the team to victory at the Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship and Gator Bowl. He later served at Carson-Newman College as the offensive line coach and the defensive line coach, seeing that team claim a NAIA championship win in 1986 and become the national runner-up the following season.
Mike returned to his alma mater, Guilford College, as head football coach in 1991, where he was twice named Conference Coach of the Year. Before his tenure ended in 2004, Guilford’s football team claimed the only two conference championships in the program’s history and produced six All[1]-Americans and sixty-seven All-Conference players. While coaching, he also served as Director of Athletics from 1996 until 2002.
“There’s been some really good things, Mike said, “but none of those beat the relationships with the coaches and the players that you establish. You know, championships and stuff are great, but the relationships that you get through coaching, that’s the best part by far, and there have been a lot of relationships over 45 years.”
Mike came to Bluefield from Hampton University after the departure of Markus Lawrence, who he had recommended to Dewey. With Markus headed for Alabama, Dewey called Mike, a friend since the mid-1980s, asking for another recommendation, and Mike expressed his own interest in the position.
“He’s just salt of the earth,” Dewey said about Mike. “The kids love him. Those boys need someone to kick their tail and hug their neck, and he does that all at the same time. Those boys eat it up when he fusses at them.”
The Assistant Coach of the Year award was no surprise to Mike “because the last two years, we’ve been awfully good,” he said. “Now, I would like to take credit for that, but I think you can see that it actually corresponds with when Nathan Herstich got here.”
From Dr. Olive’s vision for the institution to Dewey’s vision for the football program, “it all fits together,” Mike said. He added, “Everybody seems to be on the same page, and that is really, really helpful.”