Near the end of his introductory event on Wednesday, new Cleveland State coach Bob Dunn held up a Horizon League championship ring, which he earned in 2023 as a Vikings assistant.
Dunn certainly would have been within his rights to bask in the afterglow of one of the program’s historical high points, but the nature of the jewelry was tangential to the point he was about to make.
“On the inside of it, you can get engraved any word you want, any phrase, [or] your name,” he explained. “I just chose one word, and that’s ‘Cleveland.’ I am Cleveland. I’m a St. Raphael Raider. I’m a St. Ignatius Wildcat. I’m a Cleveland State Viking, and I’m proud to be leading this program.”
With that, the Bay Village native set the tone for his stewardship of the team, which is sure to be defined to a great extent by a strong connection to its hometown.
The afternoon’s speakers, from Dunn himself, to university president Laura Bloomberg, to athletic director Kelsie Gory Harkey, made it clear that being a Clevelander wasn’t the sole, or even the most significant, qualification for the job.
“He brings this real ethos of understanding Northeast Ohio and he understands Cleveland,” Bloomberg said during her introduction. “He also understands the game of basketball well. For me as the president, even more important than that, he understands…that we want to provide a transformational student athlete experience.”
Still, it was hard to ignore the way the city was placed front and center throughout the day.
That obviously included Dunn’s championship ring, but also his quoting of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Jarrett Allen at one point during his remarks. The school’s media shoot played a part too, as it sent Dunn, among other places, to the middle of Prospect Avenue with a Cleveland Guardians shirt on, and the Terminal Tower clearly visible in the background.
“Cleveland deserves…someone who is passionate about the City of Cleveland, who wants to engage in the community, and bring individuals into the Wolstein Center to support the young women on the court, and who can really embed themselves in the fabric of our campus,” Gory Harkey mentioned while outlining her list of selection criteria.
Acting as if that is some sort of departure from the status quo isn’t fair to Chris Kielsmeier, Dunn’s predecessor. In his eight years wearing green and white, the Iowan embraced his adopted home with both arms, and made community work a staple of his program. When Cleveland welcomed the Final Four in 2024, he was something of an unofficial host and ambassador who spent a lot of the week boasting about the city to the larger women’s basketball world.
He also stuffed his staff with Northeast Ohioans, including Dunn, of course, but also Chenara Wilson, Shelby Zoeckler, and, in 2025-26, Carolyn Wochele. For roughly half of Kielsmeier’s tenure, the on-court face of the program was Willowick’s Destiny Leo, who backed up the hype of being an Ohio Ms. Basketball finalist by finishing as the number two scorer in school history.
Yet all of that remained insufficient for Cleveland to support the team on a notable level, as the Vikings generally ranked near the bottom of the Horizon League for attendance despite annually being one of its best teams. Even during Dunn’s press conference, it was hard to avoid checking on the happenings 200 miles west, where former CSU coach Kate Peterson Abiad was simultaneously introduced as Purdue Fort Wayne’s new boss, while the cameras of every television station in town looked on. Back in Ohio, the media turnout amounted to a pair of writers and a couple photographers.
That probably says more about the market than about anything Kielsmeier did or didn’t do.
Regardless, with Dunn’s re-arrival and the natural renewal feelings that are part and parcel of any coaching change, it’s hard to avoid thinking about ways that Cleveland State might evolve and correct that situation.
“This campus is a part of the city, and that’s very different than other college campuses,” the new coach offered. “But in order to enjoy that, you’ve got to get out in the city, you have to experience it. You have to go to the Muni Lot. You have to go through West Side Market. You have to go to Edgewater and the East Ninth Pier. So we’re going to be out in the city showing our students [that] Cleveland State gives them a great quality of life.”
One plan of attack involves addressing a roster that hasn’t included a Cleveland-area resident, other than Leo, since 2022, and featured only one Ohioan (Toledo product Madison Royal-Davis) this past season. In recent years, HL rivals Detroit Mercy and Robert Morris have made concerted efforts at transforming into local hubs, and it seems as if CSU might be about to join them.
“It’s a priority and it’s something we’re going to work really hard at doing,” Dunn said. “And really, I know what it means to have my family in the crowd, I know what it means when other players have their families in the crowd. When those introductions go off, to hear someone say ‘six foot from Willowick, Ohio,’ I mean, that hearing that ‘Ohio’ in there is special to me, and special to our program, and special to our fans. So it’ll be a priority for us.”
The hope is that can be a foundation for more local interest, a potential that was briefly visible during the peak of Leo’s career. Downstream of things like attendance and media coverage, naturally, are donations and those ever-crucial NIL opportunities. Much of that presently lies dormant, but could certainly turn up if the community re-engages.
“But Cleveland, we need your help and support,” Dunn pleaded. “We want you to come meet our team this season, talk to our players, get to know them as people. Don’t just be fans, but be in this program with us. Once you get to meet them and learn who they are, we hope you will support and help us build Cleveland’s women’s basketball team. The best thing you can do is show up.”
“With a passionate game day atmosphere cheering us on, and NIL support to boost our recruiting efforts, we’ll get more rings and bring championships to this campus and city.”
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