Josh Willman

Josh Willman is entering his 30th season at the helm of the University of New Hampshire swimming & diving program in 2022-23.

27TH SEASON:
The Wildcats won their ninth America East Championship in program history in April of 2021, which are the most in conference history. UNH won 15 of 18 events and Willman and his staff were named America East Coaching Staff of the Year.

26TH SEASON:
The Wildcats won 15 of the 20 events and captured the championship by 116.5 points. Willman was named the America East Coach of the Year for a record 14th time.

Also in the 2019-20 season, Willman coached sophomore Anna Metzler to a NCAA qualifying time of 4:07.20 in the 400 IM at the ECAC Championships. It was the 19th fastest time in the nation and set an America East, ECAC Championships and school record. Metzler was the only swimmer in the top 20 not from a power five school. Metzler was named an All-American, while she was also the ECAC and America East Most Outstanding Swimmer, and the America East Women's Swimming and Diving Scholar Athlete of the Year.

Willman began his coaching career just after graduating from Miami when he coached at the YMCA and U.S.A. Swimming level. He entered the collegiate coaching arena as the assistant coach for New Hampshire in 1991, taking over the program the following season when he earned his first coaching honor as the Men’s Coach of the Year in 1992-1993.

CHAMPIONSHIP PROGRAM:
Willman has led the program to great success during his tenure at UNH. The Wildcats have won the America East Championship in 1998, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2013, 2014, 2018, 2020 and 2021. The nine championships are the most by a program in conference history. The Wildcats have also earned two ECAC Team Championships (2003 and 2011).

15-TIME AMERICA EAST COACH OF THE YEAR:
Willman is the America East Conference’s most highly decorated coach. He has been selected America East Coach of the Year a league-record 15 times (1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2020 and 2021) and ECAC Coach of the Year four times (2003, 2011, 2013 and 2014).

NCAA QUALIFIERS:
Eleven times Willman has coached an athlete that qualified for the Division I NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships. Willman produced UNH’s first-ever NCAA Division I qualifier in 1995 when Denise Leckenby reached the NCAA Championships. She also qualified in 1996 and 1998. She earned All-America honors in 1996, placing eighth in the 200-freestyle and 11th in the 100-freestyle. UNH went on to finish 27th in the nation at the 1996 NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships. Leckenby also was named an All-American in 1998. Shannon Daly (2006), Kary Goodman (2006), Jenni Roberts (2013), Katie Mann (2013, 2014 and 2015) and Anna Metzler (2020 and 2021) also qualified for the NCAA Championships.

AMERICA EAST & ECAC SUCCESS:
New Hampshire swimmers are the most highly honored student-athletes in the America East, winning 49 major conference awards including 26 Swimmers of the Year (18 America East and seven ECAC), eight America East Scholar-Athletes of the Year, nine Rookies of the Year and six Dave Alexander Coaches Awards. During Willman's tenure, 397 swimmers have been crowned America East champions and 113 have won ECAC championships. Also three times Willman has coached a swimmer to a gold medal at the CSCAA National Invitational Championships. Wildcat swimmers have broken over 258 school records, 110 America East records and 29 ECAC records.

NATIONAL HEIGHTS:
Another major milestone that Willman led UNH to was on Feb. 21, 2013 as the national polls were released by CollegeSwimming.com, the Wildcats earned the 19th spot in the rankings. It was the first time UNH was ranked in the top 20 in the Division I Poll. Then on Feb. 18, 2014, the Wildcats were the ranked 14th overall in the CollegeSwimming.com Division I national poll, their highest ranking in program history. Among the top-five schools were the University of Georgia (1), Stanford University (2), University of Southern California (3), University of California (4) and University of Florida (5).

OLYMPIC TRIALS:
Willman led the program to another major first when he coached New Hampshire native and breaststroke standout Kristen Zeimetz who was a finalist at the 2000 U.S. Open and participated in the 2000 U.S. Olympic team trials. UNH has then gone onto consistently have swimmers compete at the elite level representing not only the United States but more recently in the international arena with Wildcat swimmers competing at Senior Nationals and the Olympic Trials for their home countries including Canada, South Africa and Denmark.

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE:
New Hampshire is consistently an Academic All-America team and swimmers have earned NCAA Academic All-American honors, post-graduate scholarship awards and ranked as high as sixth nationally for grade point average. Willman is a certified ASCA Level IV coach and has been a recipient of the ASCA Coaching Excellence Award.