Courtesy: Cal Poly Pomona Athletics
POMONA, Calif. – Rosie Wegrich, who is in her 27th season as the head coach of the Cal Poly Pomona volleyball team and her 43rd season as collegiate head coach overall, has announced that 2018 will be her last. The American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Hall of Famer will retire at season’s end in December.
“I have decided that the 2018 season is my last season coaching at Cal Poly Pomona,” said Wegrich. “I have enjoyed my 27 years here, and I have benefitted from coaching such smart young women. I have thoroughly enjoyed my career at CPP, and I look forward to the rest of the season.”
Wegrich has the 2018 Broncos on pace for what could be her greatest season of coaching yet, as her Cal Poly Pomona squad, at 7-1, is off to its best start since 2007. Currently on a six-match win streak, all victories by way of a three-set sweep (18-0), it is the longest consecutive streak of set wins since the 1992 season when that Broncos team won seven straight matches in three sets.
With 763 career coaching victories (and counting), Wegrich is currently the 14th winningest active coach in NCAA volleyball across all three divisions, and specific to Division II, she is No. 8 all-time in most victories amongst all active and inactive head coaches who have spent a minimum of 10 years at the Division II level.
Since her arrival on the Cal Poly Pomona campus back in 1992, Wegrich has produced nine All-Americans, 18 All-Region performers and 68 All-CCAA award recipients. Her CPP teams have reached the NCAA tournament nine times and racked up 434 wins, compiling 17 winning seasons and reaching the 20-win plateau in a season seven times.
Academically, her student-athletes have earned hundreds of All-Academic honors, and just this past season, her entire team was presented with the AVCA Team Academic Award for 2017-18, which recognizes teams for maintaining a grade point average of 3.30 or higher on a 4.0 scale in any given academic year. It was the first such award for a CPP volleyball team since the AVCA started handing out the award back in 1992.
“Rosie has been a guiding force in the lives of countless student-athletes for over 40 years,” said Cal Poly Pomona Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Brian Swanson. “It has been inspiring to see such a dedicated professional continually motivating herself and her teams to immeasurable markers of success over a long and highly-decorated career. Her mark and legacy on Bronco Volleyball will certainly be missed.”
Swanson continued to say, “We are excited for this year’s team and looking forward to celebrating Coach Wegrich throughout the season. I know she is excited about her future plans and we wish her and her family all our very best.”
Dr. Lea Jarnagin, Vice President for Student Affairs at Cal Poly Pomona echoed Swanson’s appreciation. “I want to thank Rosie for her many years of dedicated service to CPP and I wish her well in all her future endeavors,” said Dr. Jarnagin.
Wegrich was inducted into the AVCA Hall of Fame in 2017 for a coaching career that has spanned four decades, including stints at Division I Minnesota (1975-76) and Division I Arizona (1977-91) for combined total of 17 seasons before settling in at Division II Cal Poly Pomona for the last 27 years. She earned her first and only CCAA Coach of the Year honors in 2005 when she led the Broncos to a 24-3 record and their first conference championship since 1990.
While at the University of Arizona, Wegrich led the Wildcats to nine consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and tallied 258 wins in 15 years in Tucson. In her first two years in the coaching ranks, Wegrich went 71-30-1 at the University of Minnesota, winning 35 games in 1975 before a 36-win season in 1976.
Details regarding a search for Wegrich’s replacement will be released at a later time.
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