NCAA Division III Illinois Wesleyan University will head into its conference championship meet with an interim head coach after the departure of head coach Teresa Fish and assistant coach Tommy Gilbert.
Volunteer assistant Adam Blanchard, an alumnus of the program and 2019 graduate, has been promoted to interim head coach, and Steve Paska, diving coach Kevin McCarthy, and Kim Nelson-Brown will serve as assistants.
“I want to thank Teresa and Tommy for their years of service at Illinois Wesleyan,” Director of Athletics Mike Wagner said, without sharing further details.
Blanchard swam for four seasons at Illinois Wesleyan and is currently listed as a coach with the Funky Fish Swim Club, owned by the former IWU head coach Teresa Fish. Paska is also an assistant with that club.
Nelson-Brown is the team’s head women’s volleyball coach, an associate athletics director, and the school’s senior woman administrator. She is a four-time CCIW Coach of the Year in volleyball.
Illinois Wesleyan will compete at the CCIW Conference Championship meet in Kenosha, Wisconsin from February 19-22. Last year, the women’s and men’s teams both finished 4th of 7 teams.
Fish is a 1988 graduate of Kenyon College in Ohio where she was a 14-time NCAA Division III national champion and 27-time All-American. She was hired by Illinois Wesleyan in 1995 and was named the CCIW Conference Coach of the Year ten times in her career.
Illinois Wesleyan is one of several programs that have found themselves making coaching changes in the weeks leading up to conference season. NCAA Division II Maryville University in St. Louis and NCAA Division III Berry College in Georgia have also made head coaching changes in the last week.
