Dean Solomon (born 9 January 1980) is a former professional

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

er who played for the

Essendon Football Club The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football club. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCracken family in their A ...

and the

Fremantle Football Club The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represent the port city of ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL). Solomon served as caretaker senior coach with the

Gold Coast Football Club The Gold Coast Suns is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based on Queensland's Gold Coast in the suburb of Carrara. The club has been playing in the AFL since th ...

for the last 3 games of the 2017 season, following the departure of senior coach

Rodney Eade Rodney Eade (born 4 April 1958) is a former Australian rules footballer and coach in the Australian Football League. He is a former coach of the Sydney Swans, the Western Bulldogs and the Gold Coast Football Club. He has, to date, coached 37 ...

on 7 August 2017.

Early career

Solomon grew up in the small mining town of

Broken Hill Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It is ...

excelling in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

and football though it is the latter in which he held the most promise. Playing for the North Broken Hill Football Club, a team with which his family has a long history he received several honours as a junior, along with several junior premierships, however as a 16-year-old he was awarded "best junior" when playing for the league or A-grade team against many large, hard men who would often attempt to physically intimidate him. Solomon played his last game for North Broken Hill in 1996, unfortunately injuring his fingers and missing a grand final. Solomon then went on to play for the Bendigo Pioneers in the under 18

TAC Cup The NAB League Boys (also referred to as simply the NAB League and formerly known as the TAC Cup) is an under-19 Australian rules football representative competition held in Australia. It is based on geographic regions throughout country Victo ...

competition. He was selected in the 1997 AFL Draft by Essendon with a 2nd round selection, number 20 overall.

Playing career

Essendon

Solomon made his

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

debut in 1998 for

Essendon Essendon may refer to: Australia *Electoral district of Essendon *Electoral district of Essendon and Flemington * Essendon, Victoria **Essendon railway station **Essendon Airport * Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League United Ki ...

and was part of their

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

premiership team. Solomon played a total of 158 games and kicked a total of 56 goals for Essendon Football Club from 1998 until 2006.

Fremantle

On 13 October 2006, Solomon was traded to

Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for ...

, following a trade of draft picks No. 42 and No. 47, Fremantle also gained pick No. 52 from the Bombers. He links up with close friend,

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

Chris Tarrant Christopher John Tarrant, (born 10 October 1946) is an English broadcaster, television personality and former radio DJ. He presented the ITV (TV network), ITV children's television show ''Tiswas'' from 1974 to 1981, and the game show ''Who Wa ...

who was traded to the Dockers on the same day from Collingwood. In 2008, Solomon was reported for elbowing

Cameron Ling Cameron Ling (born 27 February 1981) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). A tagger at and , Ling is a premiership-winning captain at the club. He is now a c ...

to the head which resulted in broken cheekbones and eye socket. Solomon received an 8-week suspension, the most severe AFL tribunal penalty in 11 years. On 18 February 2010, Solomon announced his retirement from AFL football due to a painful degenerative knee injury. Solomon played a total of 51 games and kicked 22 goals for Fremantle from 2007 until 2009.

Coaching career

Fremantle

Solomon was an assistant coach with

in the 2010 season under senior coach

Mark Harvey Mark Harvey (born 11 June 1965) is a former Australian rules football player and coach. He played over 200 games during fourteen seasons with the Essendon Football Club, winning three premierships, and was senior coach of Fremantle from 2007 t ...

. However after one season, Solomon departed the Fremantle Football Club at the end of the 2010 season on 4 August 2010.

Gold Coast Suns

He joined

Gold Coast Suns The Gold Coast Suns is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based on Queensland's Gold Coast in the suburb of Carrara. The club has been playing in the AFL since th ...

as an assistant coach in the months before they entered the AFL for the 2011 season. During the 2017 season, Solomon was appointed caretaker senior coach of Gold Coast Suns, with three matches left to go after

stepped down as Gold Coast Suns senior coach, during the 2017 season, when Eade was told he would not be receiving a contract extension with Gold Coast Suns. The Suns under Solomon went on to lose all three games for the rest of the 2017 season. Solomon was not retained as Gold Coast Suns senior coach at the conclusion of the 2017 season, and returned to being an assistant coach. The senior coaching position instead went to Stuart Dew as Gold Coast Suns senior coach for the 2018 season. After nine years of service as an assistant coach, Solomon was sacked at the end of the 2020 season. Upon his departure from the club, and on the advice of

Adam Simpson Adam Simpson (born 16 February 1976) is a former Australian rules footballer who is the current premiership coach of the West Coast Eagles in the Australian Football League (AFL). A left-footed midfielder, his playing career for spanned fro ...

, Solomon decided to take a 12 month sabbatical from the AFL in a bid to further develop himself with an eye on returning to coaching in 2022; during this sabbatical he ran a gym in

Kingscliff, New South Wales Kingscliff is a coastal town just south of Tweed Heads in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, and is a beach community offering a variety of holiday accommodations. Together with the villages of Chinderah and Fingal, it ...

Greater Western Sydney

On 17 May 2022, it was announced that Solomon would be joining the coaching staff at

Greater Western Sydney Greater Western Sydney (GWS) is a large region of the metropolitan area of Greater Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia that generally embraces the north-west, south-west, central-west, and far western sub-regions within Sydney's metropoli ...

as part-time assistant coach for the rest of the 2022 season under GWS caretaker senior coach and his former teammate

Mark McVeigh Mark McVeigh (born 26 January 1981) is a former professional Australian rules footballer for the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League. He served as the caretaker senior coach of the Greater Western Sydney Giants followin ...

, who replaced

Leon Cameron Leon Cameron (born 2 September 1972) is a former Australian rules footballer who is the former senior coach of the Greater Western Sydney Giants (GWS) in the Australian Football League (AFL). His AFL playing career lasted from 1990 to 2003 an ...

after Cameron resigned as GWS senior coach in the middle of the 2022 season after Round 9, 2022. Solomon left GWS Giants at the end of the 2022 season.

Tweed Coast Football Club

On 9 November 2022, Solomon was appointed senior coach of

Tweed Coast Football Club Tweed Coast Football Club, nicknamed Tigers, is an Australian rules football club based on the Tweed Coast in northern New South Wales. The team currently competes in the Queensland Football Association Division 2 South. Formed in 2009 the '' ...

, a club that competes in the Queensland Football Association Division 2 South.

Playing statistics

:Dean Solomon's player profile at AFL Tables
/ref> , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1998 , style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 7 , , 2 , , 1 , , 38 , , 25 , , 63 , , 12 , , 13 , , 0.3 , , 0.1 , , 5.4 , , 3.6 , , 9.0 , , 1.7 , , 1.9 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" , 1999 , style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 19 , , 4 , , 4 , , 139 , , 105 , , 244 , , 61 , , 39 , , 0.2 , , 0.2 , , 7.3 , , 5.5 , , 12.8 , , 3.2 , , 2.1 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 25 , , 8 , , 7 , , 196 , , 136 , , 332 , , 115 , , 43 , , 0.3 , , 0.3 , , 7.8 , , 5.4 , , 13.3 , , 4.6 , , 1.7 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 24 , , 8 , , 5 , , 208 , , 119 , , 327 , , 101 , , 55 , , 0.3 , , 0.2 , , 8.7 , , 5.0 , , 13.6 , , 4.2 , , 2.3 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 0 , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , , — , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 24 , , 11 , , 20 , , 243 , , 105 , , 348 , , 103 , , 86 , , 0.5 , , 0.8 , , 10.1 , , 4.4 , , 14.5 , , 4.3 , , 3.6 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 23 , , 15 , , 17 , , 245 , , 154 , , 399 , , 79 , , 88 , , 0.7 , , 0.7 , , 10.7 , , 6.7 , , 17.3 , , 3.4 , , 3.8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 16 , , 4 , , 5 , , 130 , , 62 , , 192 , , 65 , , 45 , , 0.3 , , 0.3 , , 8.1 , , 3.9 , , 12.0 , , 4.1 , , 2.8 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 7 , , 20 , , 4 , , 3 , , 146 , , 97 , , 243 , , 72 , , 48 , , 0.2 , , 0.2 , , 7.3 , , 4.9 , , 12.2 , , 3.6 , , 2.4 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 6 , , 20 , , 11 , , 10 , , 196 , , 120 , , 316 , , 77 , , 108 , , 0.6 , , 0.5 , , 9.8 , , 6.0 , , 15.8 , , 3.9 , , 5.4 , - style="background:#eaeaea;" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 6 , , 13 , , 7 , , 7 , , 149 , , 71 , , 220 , , 70 , , 36 , , 0.5 , , 0.5 , , 11.5 , , 5.5 , , 16.9 , , 5.4 , , 2.8 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 6 , , 18 , , 4 , , 6 , , 144 , , 125 , , 269 , , 60 , , 87 , , 0.2 , , 0.3 , , 8.0 , , 6.9 , , 14.9 , , 3.3 , , 4.8 , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 209 ! 78 ! 85 ! 1834 ! 1119 ! 2953 ! 815 ! 648 ! 0.4 ! 0.4 ! 8.8 ! 5.4 ! 14.1 ! 3.9 ! 3.1

Tribunal history

; ''Key:'' * PS – Pre-season competition * EF – Elimination final * QF – Qualifying final * SF – Semi-final * PF – Preliminary final * GF – Grand final

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Solomon, Dean 1980 births Living people Australian rules footballers from New South Wales Essendon Football Club players Essendon Football Club Premiership players Fremantle Football Club players Bendigo Pioneers players Allies State of Origin players North Broken Hill Football Club players Australia international rules football team players Gold Coast Suns coaches Perth Football Club players One-time VFL/AFL Premiership players