Alan Dunn is imposing proof that athletic success can lead to fulfillment in other ways.

The former Boyd-Buchanan School all-state lineman and Tusculum College All-American made the Times Free Press all-star team for the decade since the city’s daily newspapers merged.

In the past year, Dunn has become perhaps the biggest lawyer in Chattanooga.

At 6-foot-6 and a “little over” his final Tusculum playing weight of 320 pounds, he is content to have helped coach a Brainerd Bills youth team to an undefeated season and a local Super Bowl championship in 2008.

Last spring, soon after he passed the Tennessee bar on his first try, Dunn said he was “done with football. There’s not even a little bit of desire to play.”

After earning a history degree from the Greeneville, Tenn., college with a 3.4 grade point average, he did give the NFL a try. The South Atlantic Conference’s Jacobs Blocking Trophy winner, he earned the Jim Langer Award as the best offensive lineman in the January 2004 Cactus Bowl in Texas — for NCAA Division II seniors.

That led to an expenses-paid trip to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ rookie minicamp and later a couple of days at the Atlanta Falcons training camp.

“I wasn’t a priority free agent, but I gave it a shot,” Dunn said. “Then it was time to move on.”

He worked at “two or three” jobs while deciding on his postgraduate studies. After settling on law school and sending off applications, he gave football a final fling in ’05 while awaiting the responses. He went to Wyoming and played in the National Indoor Football League with trips to Montana, Nebraska, Texas and Washington state, among others.

“That was just fun, but it helped me out,” he said. “I saw a bunch of guys holding out hope for a pro career, and some had been doing that for years. That’s when I knew for sure it was over for me. The risk-versus-reward seemed like too much of a long shot.

“But bouncing around to all those places, it was probably the funnest summer I ever had. I didn’t get paid very much, but luckily I went to a good organization. For a guy with no bills, no family, I had more than enough to do what I wanted.”

Near the end of the season came his law-program acceptance — and more good fortune. The Thomas M. Cooley Law School is regarded as one of the easiest to get into but one of the hardest to get through, and Dunn used his blocking skills figuratively to ward off all distractions in finishing in three years with no summer breaks.

He did an “externship” with noted Michigan defense attorney Hugh Clarke Jr. and did a lot of the grunt work on a high-profile case in which a man who had been convicted of murder and sexual assault was freed after two and a half years in prison. Dunn appeared with Clarke and the defendant in a big color photo on the front page of the Detroit Free Press.

The Chattanoogan wasn’t hard to spot.

“I would say he is physically the largest lawyer in town,” said Barry Abbott, whose Cavett & Abbott firm provides office space and some resources for Dunn and other non-associate attorneys. “Larry and Harry Cash, the twins, may be a couple of inches taller, but he’s got them beat by probably 150 pounds.”

Dunn handles criminal and property work with his one-man operation.

“We call him Tater,” said Abbott, who has long known Alan and his father, Bobby Dunn, through the Harrison Recreation Association, “but he’s a real good lawyer. He comes with a natural skill set. He’s very likable and personable — everyone at the courthouse likes him, which is a big help — and he’s sharp.

“He’s also not afraid to go to court. You can’t say that about all lawyers.”

Dunn’s explanation is simple: “It beats beating on other 300-pound guys on a hot day.”

Waiting until mid-April for the results of his February bar exam “was more nerve-racking than anything I’ve ever done,” he said. But the rewards of his hard work were gratifying.

“The biggest lesson is that you don’t have to go to SEC schools or schools at that level of football to accomplish what you want to do,” Dunn said. “I wanted to go to an SEC school, but there are other places to get your education paid for. People talk about how the system uses athletes, but the flip side is that I used the system to benefit me.”