Ohio State’s men’s associate head coach Dave Rollins will be moving south to take over as the new head coach of the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles women’s program.
The school announced the move today. Rollins will take over for departed head coach Neal Studd, who took the head coaching job at Florida State just over a month ago. Studd had been the program’s only head coach since starting the program in 2007.
Rollins becomes the second head coach in FGCU school history. He had just been promoted at Ohio State earlier this year, taking the title of Associate Head Coach.
He’s a former standout swimmer, having won multiple All-America honors with the University of Arizona in the mid-2000s. He began coaching there, with the Tucson Ford Dealer Aquatics club before moving into the college realm with the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks in 2007. He’s also coached with the Cincinnati Marlins and St. Xavier High School in Ohio.
He joins a FGCU program that has become one of the top mid-major swim teams in the NCAA’s Division I. The team has won 7 titles in the CCSA in the program’s 8 years of existence and finished 26th at NCAAs last year – the highest finish for any mid-major program.
Dave is a great coach and a great person. He is going to be fantastic at FGCU. Congrats Dave!