Ohio State Hires Former NCAA Champion; Cincy Marlins Coach Dave Rollins

In another one of these big-time national college coaching gigs that have been lingering unfilled for a long time, the Ohio State Buckeyes have hired coach Dave Rollins as the new assistant for their men’s program.

Rollins has impressive credentials, both as a coach and as a swimmer. He has spent the last 2 years with the famed Cincinnati Marlins club as the head coach of their West Marlins satellite program. He has also worked with the St. Xavier Aquabombers over the past two seasons as they and their head coach Jim Brower roared to two state titles in the last two years, including 11 All-Americans last season.

Much of Rollins’ experience prior to the last two seasons comes from the state of Arizona. There, at the University of Arizona, he was a 9-time All-American, a 2006 200 medley NCAA Champion, and a USA Swimming National Championship finalist (though he wore his hair a bit longer back then). After completing his eligibility, he worked under Frank Busch with Tucson Ford, and then went on to take over the Flagstaff Peaks Aquatic Club.

He grew that program from a small club of 30 swimmers into a USA Swimming Bronze Medal Club, including training its first ever Junior National qualifier. Now Flagstaff is viewed as a global destination for high-level altitude training. While working with PEAKS, he got his first taste of college coaching as an assistant for Division I Northern Arizona University.

Now he moves on to fill the role in Bill Wadley’s program at Ohio State that was vacated when Chris Peters took over the head women’s job at Toledo.

Rollins has proven not only to produce top-level athletes, but has also proven to be one of the biggest and most visible boosters for the Marlins in his two seasons there. That ability to draw others into his excitement should make him a highly-effective recruiter and perhaps push a top-10 Ohio State program to the next level in the coming years.