Tia Dawson is fascinated by how things work. Always has been.

On the basketball court, Washington’s 6-foot-2 senior post player is always thinking.

“I like to figure out what the other team is going to do next and steal the ball,” she says with a wide grin, her quiet demeanor offering little hint of her intensity on the court.

Coach Frank Howell is happy to fill in the details. “She has a chance by the end of the year to be the school’s all-time leading rebounder as well as the all-time leader in blocked shots,” he says. “Plus she’s a scoring leader on the inside.”

Off the court, Dawson studies AP calculus and dreams of being an engineer. “I like the idea of knowing how things work, and I’m really good at math,” she says. Undaunted by her torrid schedule of classes and practices, she holds a 3.8 GPA.

Dawson’s academic and athletic potential were both evident from an early age. “I read a lot when I was little,” she says, encouraged by her teacher aunt. She skipped second grade after excelling on standardized tests.

At the same time, she was making her mark on youth basketball teams, starting with the Jane Boyd League in third and fourth grades, followed by YMCA teams, the AAU Panthers, and her Franklin Middle School team. At every level, she was dominant. “I was always tall,” she says, as if by way of explanation.

Dawson has played on Washington’s varsity team all four years, the last three as a starter, making an impact through her work habits as well as her prowess on the court, says Howell.

“She’s at all the workouts, every open gym, always on time. It doesn’t take her long to learn something new. If you show it to her once, it sticks. She’s a very good student, always at class with her work done. She’s not a real vocal kid, but she leads by example.”

To make it all work, Dawson follows a disciplined routine that belies her youth. Monday through Saturday, she practices or plays with the team for two hours a day, followed by two to three hours of homework.

On Sundays, she attends meetings of the local junior chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), where Rockwell engineers help students with academic projects and encourage their interest in science and technology. Last year, Dawson joined chapter members in attending a national NSBE convention in Las Vegas, where they participated in a math competition and met engineers of all types from all over the country. “It was a good experience,” Dawson says.

But her biggest hero and fan, on and off the court, is her mother, Sylvia, who attends every game, home and away, even if it means driving across the state in a snowstorm. It was a conversation with her mother about Dawson’s academic interests that led to her desire to pursue the field of engineering, she relates. “It’s really important to my mom that I go to college.”

Dawson has had inquiries from all three of Iowa’s state universities, but currently has her eye on Bradley University and Division II Missouri University of Science and Technology, a highly regarded technology research institution.

Howell says Dawson has remained a bit under the college basketball radar compared to some of the other outstanding seniors in this year’s metro area high school ranks.

“She’s not a self-promoter and she hasn’t played in some of the big showcases that some of these kids have. But she has a lot of upside. Age-wise, she’s a year younger than the graduating class, with room for her confidence to develop. The important thing is trying to find a school that fits both her basketball goals and her goals with engineering.”

For now, Dawson has more immediate objectives for the two-fold trajectory of her Washington High School career. “I want to end with a 4.0 at least,” she says. “In basketball, I hope we win state, and I think that we can do it this year. We have four returning seniors, we work well together, and we have a lot of skills.”

A quick mind. A disciplined life. A passion to excel. With those skills, Dawson has a good chance of hitting the mark regardless of her target.