McKenna enters his first season with the Hiram football program as the special teams coordinator and defensive backs coach in 2021-22, having joined the Terriers from Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine, where he served as the special teams coordinator/outside linebackers coach for the 2019-20 season until the program was discontinued due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prior to joining the Mariners, McKenna spent the spring as the special teams coordinator/defensive backs coach at Nichols College in Dudley, Mass.
Previously, McKenna also spent two seasons as the special teams coordinator, director of football operations and recruiting assistant at Methodist University in Fayetteville, N.C., helping coach the 2017 USA South All-Sportsmanship Team Place Kicker, Landon Cheviron.
McKenna began his collegiate coaching career at his alma mater, Anna Maria College in Paxton, Mass., serving as the Amcats’ defensive backs coach for one season from 2013-14, before being promoted to Anna Maria’s special teams coordinator and running backs coach, as well as the director of football operations, coordinator of football social media and youth & high school football summer camps coordinator for the next three years, from 2014-16.
With the Amcats, McKenna coached four Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC) All-Conference honorees, including two First-Team All-ECFC selections, Stefano Marziale, a first-team all-conference punter in 2014, and Francis Cole, a first-team punter in 2016. Under McKenna’s tutelage in 2016, Cole finished second in the nation in punting and was also named to the NCAA Division III All-America Second-Team and the Worcester Area All-Star Team.
A 2013 graduate of Anna Maria College, McKenna was a three-year letter winner for the Amcats and was the first recipient of the “Dan McKenna Coaches Award,” named after McKenna and annually given to a senior who excels on special teams and is a role model on-and-off the field.
McKenna earned his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Anna Maria College in May 2013.
