Toledo announced on Monday afternoon that they had “relieved” head women’s swimming & diving coach Brie Globig of her duties with the program after five seasons with the Rockets. The move comes less than two weeks after Toledo finished 7th out of 8 teams at the MAC Championships with 230 points.
Globig finished her Toledo career with a 13-25 (.342) record in dual meets, the worst record by any head coach in at least the last 35 years of the program’s history.
She took over a program that was already at the bottom of the conference (they were 7th in 2018-2019), and after an initial jump to 6th place in 2020, Globig’s first season leading the program, they finished 7th, 8th, 7th, and 7th over the last four years of her tenure. She served one season as interim head coach before getting the job on a full-time basis in April 2020.
Bowling Green State, the one school that Toledo beat at the MAC Championships, is also making a head coaching change this offseason.
When she took over the program, she was one of the youngest Division I head coaches in the country, having finished her own college career at Division II East Stroudsburg State University in 2012. She then spent four years as the head coach at her alma mater and a year as a graduate assistant at California University (Pa.).
The Rockets set one program record at the 2024 MAC Championships when 5th-year senior Lauren Kilgore swam 53.46 in prelims of the 100 fly before placing 7th in the final. Kilgore led the team with 37 individual points at the meet. She and fellow 5th-year Kennedy Lovell (7th, 200 free, 1:49.57) were the team’s two A-Finalists at the 2024 meet.
“We are very grateful for Coach Globig’s service to the University of Toledo,” said Toledo Director of Athletics Bryan B. Blair. “We will work diligently to find the next head coach for Toledo Swimming and Diving.”
Blair took over the department in 2022 at just 37 years old, which made him the youngest FBS Athletics Director in the country at the time.
Former Rocket Swimmer as well as a former Coach. Toledo is an amazing place and you can win there and compete at a high level. Need to recruit and develop and have a positive attitude and influence on the team. I didn’t like what happened to my men’s program there being cut especially during my time there as an assistant coach when the cut happened. Still follow that team of women and I know that they can compete in that league, just have to recruit the talent and also find diamonds in the rough that you can develop into impact swimmer’s.
Athletic directors always have direct scholarship information and budgets for each sport of each college in their conference and so they should judge coach performance based on what they provide based for team support.
If college X has 8 full scholarships and college Y has 4 scholarships, it doesn’t matter how good the coach is, the coach (and team) at college Y will never outperform college X. If all teams have similar scholarship amounts and similar, then a good comparison can be made.
Another way of saying this if you have Bob Bowman at a college with zero scholarships, would he be able to beat ASU will full scholarships and where would he be in the conference ranking?… Read more »
Most of these teams are fully funded so its all a level playing field. A more legitimate conversation has to do with operating budgets of comparable programs that have the same scholarship amounts
I speak as a former rocket. 2001-2003. The university of Toledo left me high and dry in my swimming career when they cut the men’s program. I was forced to move on and had success elsewhere. I will never forget how the board walked out on the alumni that raised $5 million to fund the program on donations made from every div I swim program in the country. I was proud to be a rocket. Don’t go to Toledo if you’re an athlete.
I also speak as a former Rocket Swimmer. It’s unfortunate to hear about the experiences of the men’s program being cut especially since the story that had gone mainly unheard by the following generations of Toledo swimmers. It is also unfortunate that you assume nothing has changed since 2003 and that going to Toledo is still a bad choice for an athlete 20 years later. From my experience, it is true that the former AD displayed little to no commitment to the long-term success of the swim program. I am hoping that the motivation behind this decision is the new AD’s commitment to the success of the program.
The board walked out on us in 2003 claiming title IX. It has nothing to do with athletic directors. #badrolemodels
Another moral of the story. Look for upcoming coaches that want to coach at this level and have a proven track record at the club level.
Bob would not have been eligible to apply for this position in years past (before he was a college coach) to apply to The University of Toledo. They have a hard policy that you must have college coaching experience to apply for a job like this one. I asked the AD about this policy in the past and asked if Bob, Michael Phelps club coach could apply and he said no.
Lars won the conference several times. You have to be able to recruit and train swimmers. This coach could not do that!
College coaching is an exclusive club, which is why most coaches in that “elite rank” want to keep club coaches out
I’m sure Bob was chomping at the bit to leave Phelps and NBAC to make 60k at a MAC school.
She was the only coach that showed me true kindness and made me fall in love with swimming again. Hard to take a program far with limited resources when all the schools just care about football etc. and swimming gets the leftovers. No doubt that she will do big things as she was the most motivating coach, and took a chance on the underdog and believed in them.
Looking forward to Swimswam’s coaching predictions article for BGSU and Toledo!
^^^ rt
There is a former Toledo coach available (assuming that being on the SafeSport list isn’t a disqualifying factor for hiring at a NCAA institution)…
Let’s bring this full circle
This AD might hold that former coach to a higher standard rather than overlooking head coaches sleeping with their athletes. Man between Lars and track coach Hadsell Toledo just can’t find winners.
Wow MAC is being ruthless this year. Let’s see if they give these programs the resources to succeed
Honestly though, it’s kind of refreshing. I think a lot of college swim coaches get way too much slack for their failures because the AD doesn’t understand the sport.
Other side of the coin, AD’s firing coahes because the AD’s don’t understand the sport. I’m reminded of a very prominent and successful coach being fired after the AD clearly showed how little he knew about swimming. “When are you going to beat (X University in your conference)?” “I never will as long as (Y) is the head coach.” “You are relieved of your duties effective now.”
Agreed, it’s true you may never win the conference, but if you’re successful enough and consistently in the conversation for top 3, or at least taking the program in the right direction, then I’d count that as being successful. I’d also say 3-5 years is a good time frame to see the difference a new head coach makes. First year they couldn’t recruit or do much, second year us 50/50 you may have been able to recruit some but the majority of Recruits are already committed if they’re good, 3rd year you finally have your first fully recruited class and you should have established the culture you want