Matthew Gearing enters his third season at Head Coach of Catawba College Men's and Women's Swimming in the fall of 2024.
Gearing led the swim programs to new heights in the 2023-24 season, as both teams posted their highest finish at the SAC Championships in team history. The women reached 22 in the CSCAA poll, their first national ranking in program history and besting Division I Gardner-Webb in a dual meet. Not to be outdone by their successes in the pool. the women also earned the highest team GPA in the country for the third and fourth semesters in a row, while both teams recorded the most volunteer hours in the country. Marit Reckmann earned SAC Scholar-Athlete of the Year and Lillie Martin was the SAC Elite 23 Award winner in women's swimming.
The men finished as the SAC runners-up, helping Gearing earn SAC Male Swimming Coach of the Year, the first such honor of his career. The men earned the top GPA in Division II in the fall and third-best in the spring. Maks Minichowski earned Men's SAC Swimmer of the Year, while adding two All-American finishes at the NCAA Championships. Both teams upended nationally ranked Wingate in a dual meet, the first win over the Bulldogs for the women since 1999 and the first-ever win for the men over their conference foes.
In all, the teams combined to break 40 school records in 2023-24, with a total of 187 individual lifetime bests. The teams combined to take six SAC individual titles and send a program-record four swimmers to NCAA Nationals in Indianapolis.
In his first year in Salisbury, both the men's and women's swimming teams ranked among the top-ranked programs in the nation academically, as the women had the highest GPA in all of Division II women's swimming with a 3.77 GPA in the fall and a 3.85 in the spring. The men also ranked top six in the nation in both semesters, posting 3.52 GPA in the fall with a 3.47 in the spring. Both programs were named a Scholar All-America Team in both the fall and spring.
Catawba excelled in the pool as well as the classroom, as Gearing helped lead the team to 130+ individual best times, 72 program top-10 times and 13 school records. The women finished third and the men finished fourth in the SAC Championship meet, both program-bests. The Catawba women also ranked fifth in all of Division II in progression percentage at conference championships.
Individually, Gabriella Moll became the first Catawba women's swimmer to qualify for the NCAA National Championship meet since 2001, while earning All-American honors with a 14th-place finish in the 200 Breaststroke while also earning Scholar All-America honors with a 3.5+ GPA in the spring semester. Moll earned Female Newcomer of the Year at Catawba's department-wide Awards Banquet.
On the men's side, Ofek Malul earned SAC Swimmer of the Week for his performances vs. Frostburg State and at Emory & Henry January 6-7. Malul also earned the Whitener Award, the most prestigious award to receive at Catawba, highlighting a high degree of character, leadership and scholarship.
In addition to their success in the classroom and the pool, Catawba swimming made its mark in the community, as the women's swim program led the athletic department and ranked second in DII women's swimming with 516 volunteer hours. The men ranked third in the department and fifth across all men's sports in DII with 353 service hours.
Under Gearing, Catawba is bringing in 14 new student-athletes for the 2023-24 season, for a total roster size of 35 student-athletes, the largest team in Catawba Swimming history.
Gearing joined Catawba College in July of 2022 after spending the previous year as an assistant coach at Florida State University. While with the Seminoles, Gearing undertook a wide variety of duties including creating scouting reports for dual meets and managing the scouting and recruiting process for the men’s and women’s class of 2024 while also assisting in similar efforts for the men’s and women’s class of 2023.
Gearing also helped coach athletes that went on to break a total of eight school records throughout the 2021-2022 season, and he helped lead his student-athletes to five more scoring swims at the 2022 ACC Championship meet compared to the previous year. He also helped coach five national-qualifying men’s and women’s relay teams in 2022.
"Coach Gearing is a rising star in the swimming world and has come to us highly recommended by some of the most prestigious swim coaches in the nation," said Director of Athletics Michelle Caddigan. "He is committed to excellence in the classroom, pool and in life and we look forward to watching him propel our program to new heights. We are ecstatic to welcome him to the Catawba College Family."
"From the very first conversation with [Caddigan], I could feel the passion she had for Catawba," Gearing said. "She shared her vision and goals for the program, and ultimately what is possible for this athletic department, and I knew immediately that it was something I wanted to be a part of. I'm grateful for her trust to lead this program, and I am excited for the road ahead. I have many mentors, colleagues, and friends to thank for their support with this decision but most importantly is my family. My wife, Caroline, is my biggest supporter and does a great job of holding me accountable and keeping me on course. Being a father to my son, Michael, is the greatest joy of my life and I can't wait for the team to meet him," said Gearing. "I'm ready to get to work and start developing tomorrow's leaders at Catawba today. It'll be a fun and exciting time as we turn the page and begin a new chapter of Catawba Swimming. #RollTribe
Prior to FSU, Gearing spent time at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where he was the Assistant Women’s Swimming Coach. In his tenure with Little Rock, Gearing helped guide the women’s team to score over 100 more points, double the number of podium finishes, and scored in every single swimming event with nine more finals swims at the 2021 Missouri Valley Conference Championships compared to 2020. In Gearing’s tenure, Little Rock achieved six school records, 17 times that were in the program’s Top-5 all-time, and he helped coach an athlete to Conference Swimmer of the Week twice.
In 2019, Gearing joined the Indiana Hoosiers as a volunteer assistant coach. That year, Indian was a powerhouse program whose women finished third in the Big Ten conference and were projected to place within the top eight teams at the NCAA DI Championships before the meet's cancellation due to COVID-19. He began as a volunteer assistant coach in May 2019 and was promoted to a full-time assistant in February of 2020.
At Indiana, Gearing played a role in the recruiting process as well as logistics within the team. Not only was he responsible for creating workouts for the mid-sprint group, but Gearing also tracked every training group's volume and intensity throughout the season to analyze effectiveness and suggest future improvements. He also coordinated Indiana's social media accounts, notably boosting their team Instagram page to become the most-followed collegiate swimming and diving team account at the time.
Gearing also directly assisted in the preparation of several professional athletes for the 2020 Olympics, which was postponed until 2021. Gearing worked with well-known swimmers such as world record holder Lilly King, American record holder Zane Grothe, bronze medalist Cody Miller, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and World Record holder Zach Apple, and relay gold medalist Blake Pieroni.
Before joining the Hoosiers, Gearing studied at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina, serving as a volunteer assistant coach for the Division II swimming and diving team all four years of his undergraduate studies. Gearing received his degree in exercise and sports science and graduated in December of 2018. While with the Royals, he helped Queens to eight DII National Championships between the men's and women's teams.
Gearing and his wife, Caroline, reside in Salisbury with their son, Michael.
What They're Saying About Matthew Gearing:
David Marsh - 2016 USA Women's Olympic Team Head Coach, National Championship Coach (Auburn, Cal), International Swimming Hall of Fame Coach
Matthew has been a trusted and loyal coach on deck from the start. His passion to learn, has and continues to be remarkable. I most appreciated his willingness to contribute to high performance cultures without being intimidated. Matthew, since working with me has gone on to learn other systems and with being offered the position at Catawba he is ready to implement his own system. I am excited to watch the team's growth and to be a resource for him in this effort.
Jeff Dugdale - Queens University of Charlotte Men's and Women's Swimming Head Coach and 14x NCAA DII National Champion
Matthew is a student of the sport of swimming. His aquatic intelligence has been on fast forward since starting university. He poured his heart and soul into learning, contributing, and planning championship swimming all while nurturing remarkable experiences.
He contributed at a high level to 8 of our 14 National Championships. He was mentored by Olympic coaches and worked with American and World Record swimmers. Most importantly when you ask him about his greatest accomplishments, he talks about his joy of developing student athletes swimming skills and roles within a value driven system. He has seen first-hand that when people are valued and nurtured, they can move mountains.
I am excited for Matt, Caroline, and Michael to return home and start leading his vision under the direction of an amazing Athletic Director Michelle Caddigan. Matt has the support system in place to help him thrive.
Bob Groseth-Northwestern Hall of Fame Swimming Coach, Multiple Coach of the Year in Big 8 and Big Ten Conference and 2005 Division I NCAA Coach of the Year
I have had the privilege of observing Matt throughout his entire career from his Undergraduate days at Queen's to now his current position at Catawba as the new head coach. If you were to design the optimum path to prepare yourself to become an elite swimming coach, you can do no better than follow the path that Matt has taken so far.
Undergraduate degree in Sports Science – Check. Observe and participate in the building of a winning culture at Queens – Check. Make yourself indispensable to an elite swimming coach (David Marsh – Team Elite) – Check. Volunteer at what was at the time the hottest NCAA program (Indiana) – Check. Gain experience running your own training group at Arkansas Little Rock – Check. Being a part of a Power Five program as a full-time assistant – Check.
Along the way Matt has continued his education by reading, observing, and consulting with the elite coaches in the swimming world. If Catawba hired Matt to take them to the next level, they picked the perfect guy. To his future opponents, I give you one word of advice. LOOK OUT!
