Joel Rollings named Marquette’s first head swimming coach

The Department of Intercollegiate Athletics has named Joel Rollings as its first ladies’s swimming head coach, Vice President and Director of Athletics Mike Broeker introduced Monday afternoon.

Marquette introduced the addition of ladies’s swimming because the college’s seventeenth varsity sport this previous May and can start crew competitors in 2026-27.

“We are thrilled to welcome Joel as the first head coach of Marquette women’s swimming,” Broeker stated.  “He rose quickly to the top of a very competitive candidate pool, and for good reason — his track record of building and growing programs speaks for itself.

“Just as importantly, he has shown a deep care for his student-athletes, investing in their growth as people through the sport they love,” Broeker added.  “We are equally excited to welcome his wife Lauri and their son Sam into the Marquette community as we begin this exciting new chapter together.”

Rollings arrives at Marquette after serving for the previous two seasons as head swimming and diving coach on the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), the place he oversaw the institution of each the boys’s and ladies’s packages for the Raiders.  The program was acknowledged as probably the most improved in NCAA Division III in 2024-25 and Rollings was named the Liberal Arts Conference Men’s Coach of the Year.

“I am incredibly grateful to Athletic Director Mike Broeker and Senior Woman Administrator Danielle Josetti for the opportunity to establish Marquette’s inaugural women’s swimming program,” Rollings stated.  “It’s an honor to be a part of Marquette’s rich athletic legacy and contribute to its continued growth and success.”

Over the previous 20 years, Rollings has labored with athletes in any respect ranges, together with student-athletes who went on to change into Olympic Trials qualifiers.

Prior to MSOE, his most up-to-date collegiate cease was on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2018-19), which got here on the heels of a 12-year tenure at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (2006-2018). While with the Warhawks, Rollings coached two NCAA champions, 56 WIAC champions, 13 particular person All-Americans, three All-American relay groups, and noticed his groups break 92 college data. UWW’s Amy Spaay was the NCAA champion and document holder within the 100-yard breaststroke in 2013 and in addition claimed the 200-yard breaststroke title on the nationwide meet that season.

He earned WIAC males’s swimming and diving coach of the yr three completely different occasions (2008-09, 2012-13, 2014-15) and claimed the identical honor on the ladies’s facet twice (2014-15, 2017-18).

Rollings was a student-athlete at Milwaukee (1991-93) and earned his bachelor’s diploma in kinesiology in 1995 and his grasp’s in liberal arts from Texas Christian University in 1998.  While at TCU, he served as a graduate assistant coach with the boys’s crew, primarily working with the sprinters, in addition to a 1998 World Open Water medalist.

Rollings and his spouse, Lauri, and their son, Sam, reside in Whitefish Bay.  His father, Dr. Harry Rollings, was a professor at Marquette from 1973-80 within the psychology division, educating industrial and organizational psychology and human elements engineering. 

Marquette’s program will compete within the Big East Conference Championships however won’t characteristic a diving program. Nearly 200 NCAA Division I establishments (over 5,000 student-athletes) sponsor ladies’s swimming, together with fellow league members Butler, UConn, Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, Villanova and Xavier, and rosters characteristic as many as 30 student-athletes.