He’s been a team leader and sometime student coach throughout his years as a student, and now that he graduated from GCU (in just three years) in 2024, it’s time for Dawson Aaron to fully take over the reins of the GCU Powerlifting team by himself. And while Aaron is as humble as they come, he also begins the job of head coach after exponentially raising the awareness and success level of the squad this past summer.
Aaron has had his foot on the proverbial gas pedal ever since arriving from his hometown of Lakewood, Colorado, in the summer of 2021. Football was Aaron’s main sport at Green Mountain High School, playing both running back and linebacker, but when he got to Grand Canyon, a school without NCAA Football, instead of choosing GCU Flag Football as his designated club sport, Aaron signed up for GCU Powerlifting.
From there, the learning curve was quick. Between the start of his freshman and sophomore years, Aaron won first-place medals in four different meets in Arizona and Colorado while slowly starting to assume a leadership role within the club. He got his first taste of USAPL Collegiate Nationals as a sophomore, finishing in the top 30 while breaking Colorado state records along the way. That all set the stage for a banner 2023-24, where Aaron won 1st-place medals in a pair of tournaments over Christmas break, then went to nationals and dominated, becoming a national champion for the first time last April. Aaron then had to check with his GPS to find Estonia, since he (along with teammate Faith Anderson, who also qualified) headed “across the pond” to not only compete at Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire World Powerlifting Championship in Tartu, but finish 5th in the world.
So what’s his encore? Continuing to serve others in the club. “GCU is the program that took me to the world stage, and so this kind of performance is what can help our lifters,” said Aaron. “I’m lifting for God. For people that say they’re inspired by how I go about what I do, that’s inspiration enough for me.” Aaron graduated with a Bachelor’s in Entrepreneurial Studies and Finance from GCU and plans to work towards his Master’s in Real Estate.
