BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — The CWPA Remote interview series continues as Mike Shannon of the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) discusses the Scots’ dominance of the league’s Division III group, how the game has changed over the past 20 years and more with Macalester College head coach Scott Reed.
Recently wrapping up his fifth season as head coach of the women’s water polo team at Macalester after being appointed in December 2015, Reed has turned the Scots into a conference powerhouse with three straight CWPA Division III Championship titles, a pair of CWPA Coach of the Year awards and a combined 52-38 during his tenure in St. Paul, Minn.
During his time with the Scots, he has taken the team from a 4-20 record in 2016 to back-to-back-to-back league titles and a combined 48-18 mark from 2017-to-2020.
Macalester joined Grove City College and Connecticut College in the ranks of teams that three-repeated in the CWPA Division III ranks in 2019 as the Scots wrapped up a 12-5 season capped off by an 8-5 defeat of Austin College for the crown.
In 2018, the Scots repeated as CWPA Tournament champions while posting a 14-4 overall record and a perfect 7-0 mark in conference play. The season also included a win at No. 2-ranked California Lutheran University as well as a perfect 13-0 record against teams outside of California. The team’s success resulted in Reed receiving his second CWPA Coach of the Year award in as many seasons.
The 2017 season was a special one for Macalester, as the Scots won the CWPA Tournament, held at Riley Pool, and finished with a program-best 17 victories (17-6). The championship marked a 13-win turnaround from the 2016 squad that went 4-20. The team’s success in 2017 resulted in Reed being named the national Division III Coach of the Year by the ACWPC, as well as the CWPA Coach of the Year.
Before arriving at Macalester, Reed spent 16 years at George Washington University as coach of the Colonials’ men’s and women’s water polo teams. The first women’s water polo coach at George Washington, Reed won 173 games in 15 seasons since the program’s inaugural year in 2000. In 2003 he was chosen the Collegiate Water Polo Association Southern Division Coach of the Year after guiding the Colonials to a program-best 18 wins that season. On the men’s side, Reed was named the CWPA Southern Division Coach of the Year in 2007. That year, the Colonials were ranked 17th in the final national poll. His men’s teams at GWU won 167 games in 16 seasons.
Prior to his time at George Washington, Reed was the head water polo coach and assistant swim coach at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va. He also served as a graduate assistant in aquatics at Eastern Kentucky University, where he earned a Master’s of Science degree in sport administration in 1997.
A 1994 graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Reed was a captain on the men’s water polo team and also swam for the swimming team. He held the school record in the 1,000-yard freestyle for 20 years. A native of Barrington, R.I., Reed was inducted into the Rhode Island Aquatic Hall of Fame in 2010.
