Colorado Mesa University announced yesterday that swimming and triathlon coach Geoff Hanson has resigned from CMU in order to take the head coach position at Southern Illinois University.
Hanson has a long coaching resume that started at Wisconsin, where he spent 12 years as an assistant and associate head coach. When Wisconsin head coach Eric Hansen went to Arizona in 2011 after Frank Busch departed, Hanson went along as an assistant. He left Arizona after two years, but resurfaced one year later at Western State University before taking over at CMU in 2016.
Southern Illinois had a vacancy after Rick Walker retired at the end of this season, marking the end of 32 years with the Salukis. It’s been a bit of a mixed bag for the Southern Illinois program over the past few years; the women won a Missouri Valley Conference title in 2016, but the team was also it with NCAA penalties due to the diving coaching giving what were deemed “impermissible lessons” to prospective student-athletes.
Colorado Mesa had seem some success during Hanson’s tenure there, including both men’s and women’s titles in the Division II Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference this year.
You can check out our updated list of Division I coaching vacancies here.
a big CONGRATULATIONS to Geoff Hanson becoming another fine coach at SIU, focusing on maintaining a great history. Our swimmers look forward to your joining them in successful campaigns. Swimming alumni look forward to helping when needed and asked.
Congrats Geoff!!!!
I knew he wasn’t going to stay at Colorado Mesa for long…You DID A GREAT JOB there!!! SIU is lucky to get someone of your caliber!!!
Good luck Geoff! It was a pleasure to have you on the podcast a while back: https://rittersp.com/podcast/to-race-fast-you-need-to-train-with-intensity-geoff-hanson