Joel Rollings has joined the Milwaukee swimming & diving staff as a volunteer assistant coach for the start of the 2018-19 season.
Rollings comes to Milwaukee after 12 outstanding seasons as the head coach of both the men's and women's programs at nearby UW-Whitewater.Â
With the Warhawks, Rollings was named the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Coach of the Year five times (2008-09, 12-13 and 14-15 on the men's side, 2014-15 and 17-18 on the women's side). He coached 56 individual conference champions, 14 All-Americans and two national champions, with his student-athletes breaking school records a combined 92 times.
In 2012-13, Rollings helped guide Amy Spaay to NCAA Division III national championships in the 100- and 200-yard breaststrokes, including an NCAA Championship record time in the 100. Spaay became the second women's swimming and diving student-athlete in WIAC history to win a national championship. (Cheri Tiegs of UW-Oshkosh won the same two events in 1996.) She is the first swimming or diving champion of either gender in school history. The Warhawks placed 19th at the NCAA Division III Championships, the best finish in school history.
In 2015-16, Rollings led the Warhawk men to a runner-up finish at the WIAC Championships to tie the program's best-ever finish, which was last posted in 1970. On the women's side, Sierra Becker became the women's program's first-ever four-year All-America after placing 10th on the 1-meter board at the NCAA Championships. The women's team also was named a Scholar All-America Team by the College Swimming Coaches Association of America for the third straight year.
Rollings swept WIAC Coach of the Year honors in 2014-15. The Warhawk women recorded their highest-ever finish at the WIAC Championships, placing second while earning 10 individual league titles, including two relays. The UW-Whitewater men matched their second-best finish in program history, placing third and tallying six individual championships. Sophomore Josh Kanute garnered WIAC Swimmer of the Meet accolades. The women went on to place 21st at the NCAA Division III Championships, their second highest finish in program history.
The men's team broke through under Rollings in 2009-09, when it placed third at the WIAC Championships, the program's highest finish since 1970. The Warhawks made history again in 2012-13 with a No. 23 national ranking, the program's first ever ranking. Later that season, UW-Whitewater scored points at the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2000.
Prior to UW-Whitewater, Rollings served as the interim assistant swimming coach at the Milwaukee (2005-06) and the head coach for the Germantown Swim Club (2000-05). From 1998-2000, Rollings was the head age-group coach for the highly respected Phillips 66 Splash Club in Oklahoma, preceded by a stint as a graduate assistant coach at Texas Christian University (1996-98).
Rollings' first coaching job, from 1992-96, was as the head boys' and girls' coach at Grafton High School.
Over the past 20 years, Rollings has worked with athletes at all levels, from novice to Olympic Trials qualifiers. In 2011, he coached Alex Dionne, a Paralympic athlete who achieved American record times in the 500- and 1650-yard freestyle events (S7 classification).
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