Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois has announced the hiring of Evan Sholudko as the team’s new head men’s and women’s swimming coach. Sholudko will start in Charleston in late August and becomes the seventh head coach of the men’s program and eighth head coach of the women’s program. The programs have been coached by a combined head coach since 1979 when long-time coach Ray Padovan took over both duties.
Eastern Illinois is one of more-than 25 Division I head coaching jobs that came open this year when Jaqueline Michalski resigned in July. Michalski left to take over the head coaching job at Division II Gannon University. In 2017, Eastern Illinois paid Michalski $35,000 to be head coach.
Sholudko most recently coached at Assumption College in Massachusetts, where he was the head coach of the men’s team and assistant coach of the women’s team. He was the first-ever head coach of the men’s program at assumption college in the 2018-2019 season; that team will have their first varsity season in 2019-2020.
He spent the 2017-2018 season as an assistant with the Assumption women’s program, where he helped lead the team to a 2nd-place finish at the NE10 Championships. Before that, he spent a season with Division III Stevens Institute of Technology as a men’s and women’s assistant and aquatics director – where he worked primarily with sprinters.
Sholudko is a 2016 graduate of Division I UMass-Amherst, about 50 miles west of Assumption College in Worcester, where he was a four-year scorer at the A10 Championships.
The Assumption College women have placed in the top 2 in each of the last 5 NE10 Championship meets, including winning titles in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2019.
Eastern Illinois kicks their season off unofficially on September 21st with the EIU Pentathlon exhibition; their first intercollegiate dual will be against Valparaiso on October 5th.
EIUS’s men finished 5th out of 6 teams in the Summit League last season while the women placed 6th out of 6 teams: in both cases, those were repeat placements from the year prior.
At this point just cut directional Illinois schools swim program….
Evan
Best of luck in your new position. I know you will make Massachusetts proud in the Midwest!
….K