SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA)/Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC)/Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) official James Wolff joins the University of California-Santa Barbara men’s water polo staff of head coach Wolf Wigo.
Wolff has 15 years of coaching experience under his belt, as well as 18 years of water polo officiating experience. A formative figure in the growth of the sport on the East Coast over the last decade plus, Wolff now returns to the state where he played his collegiate water polo as the Gauchos’ new assistant coach.
“I am excited to be joining the Gauchos Men’s Water Polo program,” said Wolff.
“The opportunity to coach in a water polo community like Santa Barbara is not something I take for granted, and I want to thank Wolf Wigo and UC Santa Barbara for bringing me onboard. I look forward to putting my experience and energy toward further building the legacy of this already storied program.”
Wolff was most recently the head coach of La Salle’s University women’s water polo team, leading the Explorers from 2023 until the start of the 2025 season. During his tenure in Philadelphia, he coached attacker and program record goal-scorer Francesca Co’ to consecutive All-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) First Team selections, as well as recruiting 2025 All-MAAC First Team athlete Martina Bonet Saez. The Explorers were also competitive in the classroom under Wolff, with the team posting the highest team grade point average among all Division I programs in his first season.
Prior to taking the reins at LaSalle, Wolff was an assistant coach for the Iona University men’s water polo program. During his tenure with the Gaels, utility Jordan van Reeken claimed First Team All-MAAC honors and Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America Honorable Mention status in 2022.
The bulk of Wolff’s coaching experience is at the elite club level, as he worked with Greenwich Aquatics from 2010 to 2021. He built the club into one of the top teams not only on the East Coast but nationally, becoming the first East Coast team to reach the USA Water Polo National Championship in 2016. He led Greenwich to another final at USA Water Polo’s Rocktober event, taking silver there. In 2017, he was making history again by becoming the first East Coast club to win a medal at the USA Water Polo Junior Olympics in the platinum/gold era by earning bronze. Later that year, he was awarded the Ted Newland Distinguished Coach Award for the Northeast Zone.
He continued to succeed, leading the Greenwich U14 team to back-to-back bronze medal finishes at the USA Water Polo Championships Cup. In 2021, he lifted a national championship plaque by defeating hometown team San Diego Shores in the US Club Championship in San Diego. Also that summer, Wolff led Greenwich to a silver medal at the Futures Water Polo Tournament, widely regarded as the most elite tournament in the country.
On top of his coaching experience, Wolff is also a highly regarded water polo official, making regular appearances at the CWPA, MAWPC, NWPC and MAAC Championships. Formerly the Northeast Zones Head Referee for USA Water Polo, Wolff has officiated at the 2018 Men’s Senior National tournament and the 2021 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship play-in game pitting NWPC Champion Princeton University and MAWPC Champion Fordham University.
A former student-athlete at Pepperdine University, Wolff is the only active coach in the country to have also played and officiated the sport at the NCAA Division I level. During his playing tenure at Pepperdine, Wolff first met Wigo as his freshman year in Malibu was the UC Santa Barbara head coach’s inaugural season on the bench. The two also crossed paths in 2016, during the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Wolff was a production assistant for the National Broadcasting Company’s (NBC) coverage of water polo, while Wigo was a commentator for the NBC’s coverage of the sport.
Wolff joins the staff of a UC Santa Barbara team which went 15-12 in 2024 and fell to eventual champions Long Beach State University at The Big West Championship.
Information courtesy University of California-Santa Barbara Athletics Communications
