Press Release courtesy of Rutgers Athletics
Rutgers swimming and diving head coach Petra Martin announced today the hiring of Jon Maccoll as assistant coach effective Oct. 26.
Maccoll comes “To the Banks” after most recently serving as head coach at University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota, where he launched the institution’s first women’s swimming team in 2016. He brings with him a championship culture honed over the course of seven years as an assistant at UNLV and Queens University.
“I am very excited to have Jon join the Scarlet Knights swimming and diving family,” Martin said. “It is always special when you get the opportunity to hire a very experienced coach to the staff. With Jon’s head coaching experience, we can move very quickly through his transition, as he has full understanding of how a great program runs and what it needs.”
Maccoll’s resume is loaded with success, from guiding established programs to new heights, to building fledgling teams from the ground up to immediate prominence. His first stop was at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was tasked with spearheading the start-up program as an assistant coach from 2010-13. Working with head coach Jeff Dugdale, Maccoll helped mold a program that competed almost immediately at the national level. In 2015, powered by a corps of Maccoll’s recruits, Queens captured the school’s first-ever national championship in any sport by winning the NCAA Division II championships in both men and women’s swimming and diving.
“The academic prestige of Rutgers, being a part of the fastest and deepest women’s conference in college swimming, being in the most exciting region in the world, and sharing in Coach Martin’s vision for Rutgers swimming and diving are all linked together in a partnership pact for success,” Maccoll said. “I am excited to play my part in that success, by recruiting the best from around the world, while creating an environment where student-athletes can achieve their goals in the classroom, in the pool and in starting their careers.”
A seasoned recruiting coordinator with a specialization in distance swimming, Maccoll has also worked with six swimmers that went on to compete in the Olympics, with five earning gold medals at the Summer Games. Over seven years recruiting and coaching at Division I and II, Maccoll was accountable for 180 All-America swims from 31 student-athletes. At Queens, he guided 11 NCAA record holders and 23 NCAA National Championship swims from six individuals.
“Jon is one of the most passionate and competitive people I know,” Martin added. “He approaches recruiting like nobody else in the country and his passion for distance and long mid-distance training is the perfect match for our program. He is in line with our philosophy of gritty, no-excuses culture and relentless pursuit of excellence. Jon and I share the same vision for Rutgers within the Big Ten and NCAA, and have the same values when it comes to growing and guiding young women to their success in the pool, classroom and life.”
While at Queens, Maccoll brought in a pair of recruiting classes that included a total of four top-10 nationally ranked recruits. He was a member of the SwimMAC Carolina Team Elite coaching staff as well during his two years in Charlotte as assistant coach. While there, he helped start up a new program for summer training of collegiate swimmers.
Maccoll was selected as a Class of 2012 fellow for the American Swim Coaches Association, and attended both Ashland University and Slippery Rock University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Slippery Rock in 2007.
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Best of luck to Jon! I’m disappointed we won’t get to see what he could have done in another season at USF, though! 20 incoming freshman in the second year of the program would have been pretty exciting
I realize that D1 positions are hard to come by and if that’s your career goal, you jump at it when you have a chance, but… leaving a position as a head coach, in the middle of a season, is *NOT* the right way to do it. If anyone looks at hiring Maccoll down the road, be forewarned that he seems to be willing to jump ship at any opportunity, and lacks the commitment to finish the job… At least this is what is demonstrated here.