Former Mt. Hood aquatics swim coach victim of deadly plane crash

Seth Dawson, 31, crashed near Mount Si, North Bend, Washington.

A former Mt. Hood Aquatics swim coach and two other people died in a plane crash Feb. 16 in Washington.

Seth Dawson, 31, was a swimmer and coach for Mt. Hood Aquatics, formerly Mt. Hood Swim Team.

The four-seater Cessna crashed near Mount Si, in North Bend, Wash.

According to an article in The Seattle Times, Dawson and two other people died in the crash. Rob Marshall Hill, 30, was piloting the plane. Hill was a high school and club swim coach and pilot from Federal Way, Wash. Also aboard was Liz Redling, 29, of Federal Way.

At the time of his death, Dawson was living in Washington where he worked at Kentlake High School in Kent. He also coached for Valley Aquatic Swim Team (VAST) along with Hill.

Brandon Drawz, former executive director of Mt. Hood Aquatic Center and a close friend of Dawson, said, “He was a very calm, cool guy. He was always positive no matter what the situation was. It’s one of the reasons the kids responded so well to him as a coach.

“He was a swimmer for Mt. Hood Aquatics, became a coach and was promoted to be the aquatics director at Reynolds Middle School (which is operated by Mt. Hood Aquatics). About a year and a half ago he was offered a position at VAST in Federal Way as head age group coach,” Drawz said.
Mt. Hood Aquatics uses the MHCC swim complex but is not connected to the college.

According to Drawz, Dawson mostly coached younger kids, ages 12 and under. Dawson had been apart of Mt. Hood Aquatics from a very young age.
Erin Bradley, lesson supervisor for the Mt. Hood Aquatic Center, worked with Dawson for three years.

“He was very dedicated to teaching and helping people learn. He’s a very laid back person and easy to work with, fun to be around. All the kids loved him,” Bradley said.

“I was going to send him a message the other day, send him a text and say, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ because I hadn’t seen him in a while and I didn’t. Then I found out he was in the plane crash. (It was) so completely shocking and overwhelming at the same time because we didn’t have a lot of details of what had happened,” Bradley said.

“It was a huge shock to everybody. There are kids who are seniors in high school who knew him, all the way down to 10-year-old kids who knew him who he had coached in 2009,” Bradley said.

Dawson attended California State University-Bakersfield and graduated in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree of business administration and sports management.

Dawson was on the 2004 men’s NCAA Division II national team when he swam with CSUB.

Dennis Baker, age group swim coach for Mt. Hood Aquatics who worked with Dawson for a few years, said of his reaction upon hearing of Dawson’s death: “First shock and then extreme sadness. We’d all just seen him a couple weeks earlier at a swim meet up in Federal Way.

“He was really gentle and kind. He was wonderful with the kids, he always had a great smile, he was always pretty steady and laid back but intense in the water. He was a great swimming athlete,” Baker said.

Dawson coached Colin Eaton, a Mt. Hood Aquatics swimmer and Corbett High School senior.

According to Eaton, Dawson coached at Corbett for one year.

“We would room with him when we’d go to swim meets, and he’d be telling us, ‘You know, gotta talk to ladies this way’ and stuff like that,” Eaton said. “Like a bigger brother, I think, is a perfect way to talk about Seth. He was always there for us and taught us how to talk to girls,” he said.

A memorial for Dawson will be held 1 p.m. Sunday at Hudson’s Bay High School in Vancouver, Wash.

Advocate Staff