The Creighton coaching carousel continued last week with the hiring of Elmar Bolowich as the new men’s head soccer coach.
Bolowich has coached the past 22 seasons at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the winningest men’s soccer coach in UNC history with a 280-144-40 (.647) record as head coach. His teams have reached the College Cup the previous three seasons and won the NCAA championship in 2001.
He has claimed two Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year awards and a National Soccer Coaches Association of America National Coach of the Year Award. All-American junior forward Ethan Finlay said the Creighton community is thrilled with the hire.
“When I heard he was coming in town about mid last week it was a big surprise, you know, having such a big-time, high-profile coach come in,” Finlay said. “But it’s exciting. He’s a big-time coach. He’s proven it at UNC, so it’s exciting now.”
Creighton athletic director Bruce Rasmussen is credited with the hire. With Creighton head basketball coach Greg McDermott’s transition from Iowa State University, this is Rasmussen’s second hire in the past year of a coach previously from a Bowl Championship Series conference school.
“We were excited to get Elmar, because he’s obviously, if not the top coach in the country, one of the top several,” Rasmussen said.
On Jan. 26, former head coach Jamie Clark left to take the head coaching position at the University of Washington after just one year with the program. Clark’s short stay may have proved to be a blessing in disguise for Rasmussen.
“Fortunately for us, we had a search this summer for a soccer coach,” Rasmussen said. “When Coach [Bob] Warming left, we hired Jamie Clark, so we had a file that was pretty much available.”
Bolowich was not one of the head coaching prospects that Rasmussen had on file last summer, though. Bolowich, a native of Edenkoben, Germany, serves on the NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Committee, which Rasmussen has been on in the past. Their time on that committee resulted in many similar connections, and ultimately resulted in the hire.
“I was aware of the fact that he was interested in our position, so I called him,” Rasmussen said.
Bolowich’s interest was sparked after speaking with another Missouri Valley Conference athletic director.
“[The athletic director] told me great things, and he couldn’t say enough about Creighton and about Bruce Rasmussen and about the people there, and that intrigued me, and I learned more and more about it, and it sparked my interest more and more,” Bolowich said.
Once Creighton contacted him, Bolowich headed to Omaha to meet with the Athletic Department and members of the soccer program. He said the two-day visit couldn’t have gone better.
“When I was asked what strikes me about Creighton when I visited, my first reaction, without even a moment of hesitation, was the people,” Bolowich said. “Because when I met Bruce Rasmussen, and when I met all of the athletic directors at Creighton and Father Schlegel, that was very, very comforting to me — to feel like I can be a part of this family and I can work for this university and I can work for those people, so it was an honor for me.”
He said the visit has heightened his excitement to get started at Creighton. He said he believes he can take the program to another level, though he couldn’t be happier with the team he has to work with.
“From what everybody tells me, it’s an exciting young group,” Bolowich said. “It’s a good team. They will be technically very, very sound.”
With four returning All-MVC players, there is plenty of talent to build upon. The Jays advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament after winning the regular season MVC title last season. The combination of being a “traditional power” and having one of the nation’s top coaches is something Rasmussen said he believes is quite promising.
Finlay agreed. The reigning MVC Player of the Year has been on a “roller coaster” over the course of his career. After playing for three coaches in fours years. Despite this inconsistency, Finlay said he wants to end his final season of college soccer on a high note, and believes that Bolowich could be exactly what the doctor ordered.
“I think he could definitely be that final piece to the puzzle,” he said.
Bolowich hopes so. He said he has renewed energy and is ready to take on a new challenge in Omaha. Having the full support of the campus and the community is something he never had at UNC, where men’s soccer is overshadowed by the women’s soccer dynasty and football in the fall. He said he’s looking forward to what Creighton has to offer.
“I have the passion, I have the spirit, I have the enthusiasm and I have the courage to start something new and to prove myself again,” Bolowich said. “What greater place for that than Creighton University?”
The expectations are high for the Jays, but Bolowich said he is eager to take on the challenge of surpassing those expectations. Without giving his own measurable expectations for the upcoming season, he did say this:
“I definitely want to take [the program] a notch further. I want to be in the College Cup with Creighton and eventually win it.”