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Assistant Coach Jon Dunlap is in his fourth year with the Nittany Lion golf program, after spending four years as the head coach at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Ga. "Through his years at Penn State, Coach Dunlap has experienced nearly every facet of our program," head coach Greg Nye said. "He has helped develop a summer tournament program that has greatly aided the players in setting up their event schedule, as well as weekly to bi-weekly flow of communication with the coaching staff. It has put the team and staff in a position to know just exactly what every player is accomplishing over the summer." Since joining the program in August of 2005, the Nittany Lions have gradually been moving up the national rankings. The Lions reached a program high in October 2007 when they were ranked No. 6 by Golfstat.com. During Dunlap's first season as the assistant coach, the men's golf team finished first in team G.P.A. out of all the Penn State men's teams. Through the fall 2008 season, Dunlap has helped coach the team to seven tournament championships (2006 VCU/Mattaponi Springs Shootout, 2007 Marshall Invitational, 2007 Rutherford Intercollegiate, 2007 Wolf Run Intercollegiate, the 2007 VCU Shootout, and 2008 Lehigh Invitational). Under his guidance, three Nittany Lions have been named Academic All-Americans, two players named to the All-Big Ten Team and one Big Ten Freshman of the Year. The program has also continued it's success in the classroom with the program maintaining a GPA above 3.2 including 14 Academic All-Big Ten Selections in his first two seasons. "Coach Dunlap is very involved in our program as it moves through the academic year," Nye said. "Year round he oversees our strength and conditioning program with our strength training staff, as well as is his ongoing attention to our recruiting, our facility dynamics and our annual Rutherford Intercollegiate." A native of Toronto, Ontario, Dunlap began his coaching career at his alma mater following his senior year at Kennesaw State. He served as the assistant men's golf coach under Milton Abell during the 2000-01 season, during which time he helped the team to its first winning season in the school's NCAA history and an NCAA regional bid. Dunlap was named Head Coach in August of 2001, and immediately built upon the previous years success. In his first year as the head coach, he led the team to a seventh place finish at the 2002 NCAA Division II National Championship. In 2002 and 2004 his teams finished in second place at the Southeast Regional. He coached three All-Americans and two Academic All-Americans in his four years. In his final year, he and his administrators facilitated the programs move from Division II to Division I. During his coaching tenure at Kennesaw State, Dunlap also served as the first assistant golf professional and Director of the Junior golf program at the BridgeMill Athletic Club in Canton, Ga., from November of 2003 to November of 2004. Dunlap handles a large share of recruiting evaluations and correspondence, is extremely involved with team practices and player development and directs Penn State's annual home event, the Rutherford Intercollegiate. He graduated from Kennesaw State in May 2001 with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration/Management and a Master's degree in Business Administration in June 2003. "Coach Dunlap handles a large volume of information daily, be it correspondence or web-based information that applies to our program. He has been instrumental in the further enhancement of our summer tournament development program. He is involved from beginnings in winter efforts to create schedules for our players and through our bi-weekly correspondence effort as event results become available over the summer months," head coach Greg Nye.
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