Career
Dean walked onto the Georgia Technical football team in 1982 and earned a scholarship the following year playing through the 1985 as a wide receiver. He was a graduate assistant for the team in 1986. Dean was an assistant coach at Avondale High School in Avondale Estates, Georgia in 1987.
He was an assistant at Valdosta from 1988 to 1992.
From 1993 to 1999 he was an assistant at University of West Georgia. From 2000 to 2006 he was offensive coordinator for Valdosta.
Head coaching career
In 2007, Dean was named head coach of the Blazers in 2007 after Chris Hatcher took the head coaching job at Georgia Southern University. The "Dean Machine" started the season with five straight wins.
Delta State University defeated the Blazers 35–31, despite being down 28 points at the beginning of the second half.
This was the third straight championship appearance by the Bearcats, also the third straight time the Bearcats lost the national championship game. Dean is only the second head coach to lead his team to a national championship in his first season. 2008 saw the Blazers make it to the second round of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II playoffs and a 9–3 season, 6–2 in the Gulf South Conference.
In 2009, after a 6–4 season in which they finished third in the Gulf South Conference, the Blazers did not make the postseason for the first time under Dean, and for the first time since 2006.
Dean lead the Blazers to an 8–3 record and back into the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II playoffs in 2010, marking the third time in his four years he has led his squad to postseason play. After beginning the year unranked, the Blazers rose as high as #7 in the AFCA poll, before finishing the regular season ranked #17.
In 2011 the Blazers had another 6-4 season and missed the Division II playoffs. VSU finished 4th in the Gulf South Conference in 2011.
Valdosta had been ranked as high as Number.
4 in the AFCA poll in the first weeks of the 2011 season. VSU finished second in the Gulf South Conference after losing to the University of West Alabama. Valdosta would defeat University of Western Australia after playing them again in the second round of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Playoffs.
Awards and honors.
