BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Former University of Arizona men’s and women’s/University of California women’s collegiate club head coach and Indiana University alumna Emily Schmit was a recent guest on the Coffee with Coach series produced by California State University, Monterey Bay.
Named the second head coach in CSUMB women’s water polo history in September of 2016, Schmit came to Monterey Bay from the University of California. The head coach of the 2015 Sierra Pacific Division and Women’s National Collegiate Club Champion Golden Bears – as Cal defeated the University of Notre Dame by an 11-5 score at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt. – she garnered her fourth Sierra Pacific Conference Coach of the Year Award in 2016.
Schmit got her start in collegiate coaching by leading the men’s and women’s club teams at the University of Arizona. In 2008, she coached the women’s team to a Fourth Place finish at the National Collegiate Club Championship hosted by the University of Oregon at the Mt. Hood Aquatic Center, Gresham, Oregon. The Wildcat women’s team also won consecutive Southwest Conference titles during her time on the deck.
On the men’s side, Schmit saw both the “A” and “B” teams finish first and second in the Southwest Conference. She was garnered recognition as the Southwest Division Coach of the Year for the both the women and the men in 2007 and the women in 2008.
Schmit left Arizona to become the men’s and women’s head coach at De Anza College, She led the school’s women’s program in 2008, its first year of competition. Schmit assumed head coaching duties over the men’s team a year later in its first season of competition.
Following her stint at DeAnza, Schmit served as women’s (2011–13) and men’s (2012–13) varsity assistant coach at the University of the Pacific.
Schmit competed as a student-athlete at Indiana University, helping the Hoosiers reach the national championship tournament in 1997 and 1999 prior to the formation of a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship in 2000. She earned her bachelor’s degree in history and gender studies from Indiana in 2001. Further, earned a Juris Doctorate from Arizona as well as master’s degrees from both Arizona (women’s studies) and Pacific (health, exercise and sport science).
