Ohio's new volleyball coach Deane Webb said that for the first time in his career he’s entering an established program.
Director of Athletics Jim Schaus introduced Webb on Friday as a replacement of former coach Ryan Theis, who accepted the same job at Marquette two weeks ago.
Theis left a program that made an NCAA Tournament appearance last season along with winning the Mid-American Conference’s regular season and tournament championships.
Theis was in the third year of a five-year extension he signed in 2012 that would have kept him with the Bobcats until March 2016. He earned a salary of $100,739 last season.
Webb, who is the 12th head coach in program history, signed a five-year contract with an annual salary of $120,000 per year.
“One of the things that’s so exciting to me is I’ve never gone to a program that started at this position,” Webb said. “Two of the three schools that I’ve gone to, when I started, they’d never had a winning season. It was literally starting from the absolute beginning. So it’s very exciting to come in and not feel like an entire overhaul is needed.”
Webb has been a head coach for 17 years, making stops at Indiana Wesleyan, East Tennessee State and Belmont before taking the job at Ohio.
In his 11 years at Belmont, Webb won three Ohio Valley Conference titles and made three NCAA Tournament appearances, with the most recent berth coming in 2012. And during the 2010 season, Webb became the youngest Division I coach to reach 300 wins.
Schaus said that he wanted to focus on hiring someone who was already a head coach, as they already know how to handle all of the responsibilities of running a volleyball team.
“A head coach is very important to us because we have a mature program, a program that Geoff Carlston and Ryan Theis did a tremendous job in building," Schaus said. "But now, we’re looking to not just stay where we are, but we’re looking to build this program to a new and higher level of excellence.”
Webb said he was thrilled at the opportunity to accept the Ohio job and will have an easy time in recruiting, noting that the Bobcats were ranked in the top 25 last season and also recorded one of the 25 highest attendance figures in the nation.
As far as the recruits that have committed to play in Athens next season, Webb said those commitments will be honored.
“I’ve seen almost every one of these players play already,” Webb said. “They’ve recruited a number of great, great players here over the years and the next couple of classes are no exception. So we’re looking forward to building relationships with them.”
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