The Cincinnati Bearcats have hired Matt Ense as their new assistant coach, the program announced today, where he will work under Monty Hopkins.
The Cincinnati program will begin the 2013-2014 season in a much healthier position than they ended last season, as thanks in part to a big donation from their football coach, the school is on pace to reinstate men’s scholarships over the next few seasons.
Ense comes to the program after one year as the head women’s coach at Division III’s DePauw, who finished 3rd in the North Coast Athletic Conference and 27th at the NCAA Championships.
Ense’s previous experience includes as an assistant coach at Denison when they won the NCAA Championships in 2011 and 2012 (and broke Kenyon’s legendary streak). Denison head coach Greg Parini called Ense his “best assistant coach in 25 years.”
Prior to that, Ense was at the Race Club with Mike Bottom.
Ense is a Cincinnati native and swam collegiately at Eastern Michigan, where he was a 5-time Mid-American Conference Champion and 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier.
“I would like to thank Coach Hopkins for the opportunity to come back to Cincinnati and join the Bearcat family,” Ense said. “It is an honor to work with such a great staff and athletic department. I’m looking forward to working with Coach Hopkins and the student-athletes to continue building on their successes in and out of the pool.”
Cincinnati will compete in the newly-renamed American Athletic Conference, which encompasses the remaining teams of what used to be called the Big East, next season. The Depauw job now will become one of the highest-profile head coaching roles available as most schools have already begun fall practice.
