9th year as Director of Athletics
Hometown: Dodge City, KS
Colleges: Sterling College/Fort Hays State University
Jacob Ripple was hired as the athletic director at Dodge City Community College in July of 2017 and is in his ninth year as Athletic Director for the Conquistadors. He brought over 20 years of collegiate coaching and athletic administrative experience with him to Dodge City, including more than 12 years in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference.
During his time at Dodge City he's earned multiple awards, had several Conquistador sports programs have great success, while also being in involved at the national level in many ways. In 2020 Ripple was named the NACDA Under Armor Two-Year Athletic Director of the Year. At the national level Ripple has been and is currently involved in several sport committees as he is the NJCAA Football committee Chair (2020-present) and serves on the NJCAA Women's Basketball committee (2024-present), while having served on the NJCAA Wrestling committee (2019-2022) and NJCAA Men's Golf committee (2020-2023). He serves as the Region VI Assistant Men's Director (2018-present), while also being a part of the Business of Small College Athletic Advisory Board. Also is a part of the Mariah Hills Golf Course Advisory board in Dodge City.
In his eight years at Dodge City the athletic programs have had plenty of success accomplishing many first time ever accomplishments along with the best seasons in some programs history. During his time as athletic director Dodge City has seen a men's golfer win the NJCAA Division I National title, the Conqs have won 12 KJCCC titles (Men's Basketball (2), Women's Basketball (2), Men's Golf (2), Women's Golf (6)), 17 Region titles (Women's Golf (6), Cheer (5), Men's Golf (4), Women's Basketball (1), Men's Basketball (1)), along with some District titles, while also having 24 NJCAA All-Americans over various sports.
Women's basketball has perhaps been the most successful under Ripple as they program has achieved their best seasons in during his tenure as athletic director. The women's basketball team in 2024-25 finished with a 31-5 record the best record in program history while winning the programs fourth KJCCC title and first ever Region 6 championship. The 2024-25 team would go on to the NJCAA DI National Tournament marking the third straight year achieving that accomplishment and finish in the Final Four for the 2024-25 season. Women's basketball also won the KJCCC title in 2022-23 which was the first ever season the program made the NJCAA DI National Tournament. Men's basketball has had their best record in school history under Ripple's AD tenure as the program finished 30-5 in 2021-22 a season which saw the Conqs win the KJCCC and Region 6 titles along with an Elite Eight finish at the NJCAA National Tournament. The Conqs repeated as KJCCC champs in 2022-23 and made another run to the Elite Eight in the NJCAA National Tournament.
Women's golf has been dominate in the conference, region, and a big presence nationally during Ripple's AD tenure, as the program won the KJCCC, Region 6, and Plains District titles in back-to-back seasons (2023-24 & 2024-25), while the best finish at nationals came in 2018 for the program as the team finished fourth at NJCAA National Championship. The best individual finishes in women's golf at nationals have both come during Ripple's tenure as Thitapha Iamtragul (2022) and Gaemphuang Ketrahong (2025) both finished fourth place at nationals. Men's golf has won three region titles and a KJCCC title during Ripple's time at Dodge City, while also recording their best team finish at NJCAA DI National Championship finishing seventh in 2025. The Conqs men's golf program also brought home an NJCAA National Championship as Thanaphon Suwannapratheep won the individual national title in 2024.
Football made history in 2023 as the team posted an 8-3 record and would win the first ever bowl game in school history. The Conqs would finish the 2023 season beating New Mexico Military Institute 35-7 in the Wool Bowl, and would finish ranked sixth in the nation. Women's cross country has recorded a Top 12 finishes for five straight years and finished fifth in 2020 as team. Cheer program has been very successful under Ripple's tenure as they have won five Region 6 titles, while winning Intermediate Small Coed Junior College NCA National Championship three times (2025, 2024, 2023) and won Advanced Small Coed Junior College NCA National Championship twice (2021, 2024), while the Advance team has two second place finishes and a third place finish.
He has been instrumental in facilities updates at Dodge City during his time as AD including a new weight room being built and opened in December 2023, along with updates to a enclosed hitting facility for baseball and softball, renovations to the auxiliary gym for usage for practices and intramural sports.
Prior to coming to DCCC, Ripple served as the athletic director at Northeast Community College in Norfolk, NE for two years. During Ripple’s time at Northeast the athletic program grew from four teams to seven teams with another slated to start in the 2017-18 school year. This growth was a vision of both the Northeast Community College leadership and the Northeast Board of Governors. Ripple was tasked with the implementation of men’s and women’s soccer and softball during his tenure, as well as the planning and groundwork for the addition of baseball. Also during his tenure there were two athletic teams that qualified for NJCAA National Tournaments. The women’s basketball team qualified in the spring of 2016 and the women’s volleyball program qualified in the fall of 2016. For the volleyball program it was the first time they had qualified for an NJCAA National Tournament in 40 years.
Ripple served in two different administrative roles before his time at Northeast. From March of 2009 until September of 2014, he was the assistant athletic director at Garden City Community College. During that time, he served in different roles including the sports information director and the compliance officer for the department. After his time at GCCC, Ripple spent nine months as the Athletic Eligibility and Academic Coordinator at Blinn College. In his role at Blinn he was responsible for NJCAA compliance as well as advising Buccaneer student-athletes.
Before his time in administration Ripple was a collegiate women’s basketball coach for 14 years. His final coaching stop was a three year term as the head women’s basketball coach at Garden City Community College. During his time at GCCC, Ripple saw five players receive All-Jayhawk West honors and four players receive NJCAA academic honors. He went to Garden after spending four years as the assistant women’s basketball coach at NCAA Division II institution Southeastern Oklahoma State University. While with the Southeastern program, he was the recruiting coordinator as well as being in charge of the NCAA compliance paperwork for the women’s basketball program.
Ripple spent four years as an assistant in the Jayhawk Conference before moving to Southeastern. He spent one year at Neosho County Community College in 1998-1999 and then spent three years at Barton Community College from 1999-2002. In 2000 the Cougars won the Region VI Championship and placed fifth at the NJCAA National Tournament. Ripple also had the opportunity to coach one NJCAA All-American and five All-Jayhawk West players. He got his start in coaching at Sterling College as a student-assistant coach for the Lady Warrior basketball team. During his three years as a student-assistant Sterling had a combined record of 82 wins and 10 losses and made two trips to the NAIA Division II National Tournament.
Ripple received his undergraduate degree in biology from Sterling College. His Master’s degree is in Health and Human Performance from Ft. Hays State University with an emphasis in athletic administration. He is married to the former Tonja Cassity and they have one daughter, Adison.
