Missouri State has made two changes to its staff to finalize its roster for the 2013-2014 season: they have promoted Chelsea Dirks-Ham to assistant coach and added Justin Brosseau as a volunteer assistant.
Dirks-Ham has been a volunteer assistant and a graduate assistant over the last two years for the Bears, making her now a full-time coach with her alma mater. This is a fitting start to her coaching career, given the number of accolades that she earned there while a swimmer.
She was a four-time first team All-Missouri Valley Conference swimmer who won in total 13 conference championships as an athlete.
Brosseau is also an alum, having graduated in 2007, and joins the staff after 5 seasons with the women at Boise State: a relatively new program that has sent swimmers to the NCAA Championships each of the last three years. He was promoted to an associate head coaching role at Boise State prior to last year, but now will step into a volunteer job.
Rousseau, though his degree is from Missouri State, swam competitively at Truman State between 2001 and 2004.
The program returns 25 women and 19 men from the squads last year, including their first ever NCAA scorer: Paul Le, a junior backstroker.
This gives Missouri State two full-time assistants, with Dirks-Ham joining Josh Udermann in that role, which expands their staff from just one last year.
why would someone who was an associate head coach at a solid program become a volunteer assistant that isn’t as strong…?
I was wondering that too, but he’s from Missouri. I think he wants to be closer to family.
Yup, that’s my school. Go bears!