Mott Community College: MCC Coaches Have Long History Together 

Press release from Mott Community College:

Dawn Hibbard

Jun 24th, 2021

Their lives have overlapped since high school, and now Jesse Anderson and Joe Dimambro will work together as the Women’s Cross Country team and Men’s Cross Country team coaches, respectively, at Mott Community College (MCC).

It is the first time they have coached together, but they have been teammates and best friends since second grade. Their friendship grew stronger in high school when they were both on the Fenton High School Cross Country team. After graduating college, both had a stint coaching the Fenton High School Cross Country team, but not at the same time.

“This coaching partnership at MCC will be a continuation of things we’ve been working on for years,” said Anderson, new coach for the MCC Women’s Cross Country team. “We ran on the same relay team at Fenton and we’ve always been thick as thieves,” he added. 

Dimambro, who has been coaching the MCC Men’s Cross Country team since 2018, is thrilled to be partnering with Anderson coaching the MCC teams. “To have our friendship evolve with the various stages of our lives, from high school, through college, and now we are starting our families, at the same time is great,” he said.

“Not only are we best of friends,” said Anderson, “but our wives are the best of friends too, so it was easy to sell them on me taking on this coaching job.” Coaching is a part time job for both men who also have full time careers. Anderson works in finance and data for Siwek Construction of Flint, while Dimambro is Director of Races and Training at the Crim Fitness Foundation.

Running is a big part of both men’s lives. Anderson comes from a family of runners. His grandfather trained with the MCC Cross Country team in the 1970s, when he was in his 40s. “He wasn’t a student,“ said Anderson, “he just wanted to take up running and he was allowed to train with the team under long-time coach Paul Griffin.” In 1972 the MCC team participated in the Boston Marathon for the first time. “That was grandpa’s first marathon,” Anderson said.

Both Anderson and his father are runners, following in his grandfather’s footsteps, literally. Anderson has run the Boston Marathon himself.

Dimambro did not grow up in a running family, but started running to improve his endurance playing soccer. Running eventually eclipsed soccer, and now he says “virtually every facet of my life has been impacted by the running community.”

Of their new partnership coaching MCC Cross Country teams, the pair hope to honor and continue the tradition of strong Cross Country programs at the College.  “We’re just getting started, but looking forward we have a strong returning class,” said Anderson, and we’re interested in adding new runners to an already good line up.”

They want to leverage their long-term relationship to create opportunities for the teams to build off each other. It helps that they have an aligned race schedule. The teams will begin training in August.

“MCC has a good streak of our teams qualifying for NJCAA Nationals,” said Dimambro. “Last year we were able to keep the program going safely and successfully, so we have good momentum coming off last year,” he added.

This press release was produced by Mott Community College. The views expressed here are the author’s own.