September 17, 1961 – December 14, 2025
Written by Brian Summerall, former longtime Young Life staff.
Editor’s Note: Tiger Dawson served on Young Life staff for 22 years. During this time he started the work in Temple and San Antonio, Texas. He also served in the role of regional director in North Central Texas (now the Northeast Texas Region) and as a special assistant to the president.
Tiger, my good friend and mentor, was promoted to heaven this past Sunday morning after a long battle with cancer. The world is off balance today. A big presence has left. My wife, Michele, said it best: “How can there be a world without Tiger Dawson?” Tiger was such a presence, such a force, that you couldn’t imagine a world without him. How would that even work?
I met Tiger my freshman year at Baylor University (Texas), at the first Young Life club I ever attended. Tiger was up front, leading songs. He wore tennis shorts, a maroon polo with the collar popped, and top-siders with no socks. He bounced around the stage, college comb-over flopping with every move — and somehow, he just looked cool. You wanted to be doing whatever he was doing.
I never met a more confident person. And it was that confidence that made so many follow him. Well, we followed him first — and then, always, he pointed us to Jesus. When Tiger first spoke at Frontier Ranch, veteran Young Life staffer Fil Anderson gave him this advice: “Tiger, they’ll fall in love with you first. Then they’ll fall in love with your Jesus.”
And who didn’t love Tiger? And when did he ever not point you to Jesus?
I followed Tiger to my first Work Week at Frontier Ranch. I had never done an ounce of manual labor in my life, but if Tiger was going, I was in. He drove the 22-person “space shuttle” from Baylor to Colorado, and I rode shotgun, keeping him awake all night by spinning hits on the cassette deck. At 4 a.m., to the irritation of everyone else, we launched our morning show by blasting Michael Jackson’s P.Y.T., with Tiger belting falsetto at full volume. We took dedications and requests. There were no requests — other than silence — but that didn’t stop us. The show went on for another eight hours. I knew I had made a friend for life.
Tiger’s confidence allowed him to start Young Life in Temple, Texas, and San Antonio. To go where there was nothing, and create something extraordinary. To show us what it looked like to leave a legacy — to leave a wake of changed lives.
It’s the same confidence that helped launch Edify, the organization Tiger founded and led — an effort that provided private Christian education to over 12 million students last year alone in developing countries around the world.
But here’s the thing. Tiger’s confidence was never in his own giftedness. As wildly talented as he was — a communicator, a leader, a force of nature — he knew where this strength came from. His confidence was in Jesus. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:4-5, “Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves…but our competence comes from God.”
Tiger didn’t just believe this. He lived it. He walked into rooms with the certainty God had already gone before him. He made bold decisions not because he was fearless, but because he was faithful. That was Tiger — fully confident, because he fully trusted.
Tiger pointed us to Jesus not just with his words, but with his way — the way he loved without reservation, the way he poured out his life for others, the way he lived as if he really believed Christ was enough. That the tomb is empty. That death does not get the last word.
That’s not just true for Tiger. It’s true for us. The work God began through Tiger’s life — it’s still going. In the schools he helped build, in the lives he helped shape, in the faith he helped spark, and in the people now picking up where he left off. And if he were here, he’d flash that Tiger grin, and with complete confidence — in Jesus, not himself — he’d tell us: “Keep going. Keep pointing people to him. It’s all worth it.”
