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Matt Sellman, who earned All-America honors as a Pacific Lutheran University swimmer in the early 1990s before becoming a collegiate head coach, will return to his alma mater as aquatics director and head swim coach beginning with the 2010-11 season. PLU athletics director Laurie Turner made the announcement on May 17. Sellman, who graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 1996 and later earned a master’s degree from University of Findlay (Ohio), takes over for his mentor, Jim Johnson, who announced his retirement after 31 years at PLU. “Matt will be a tremendous asset to the overall Pacific Lutheran athletic program,” Turner said. “He has a track record of success as a coach at the Division III level and is very familiar with Pacific Lutheran and the Northwest Conference.”
Sellman comes to PLU from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va., where he served as head swim coach and aquatics director from 2007 to the present. He led the Eagles to six Capital Athletic Conference championships in three seasons, twice was named CAC Men’s Swimming Coach of the Year and once the CAC Women’s Swimming Coach of the Year. In all, he coached 44 UMW swimmers to NCAA Division III qualifying standards, and nine of his athletes earned All-America honors.
Prior to coaching at Mary Washington, Sellman was head swimming coach and aquatics director at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., from 2001-07. At Lewis & Clark, he rebuilt a program that went from a string of last place finishes in the Northwest Conference to achieving a second-place finish at the 2006 women’s conference meet. Additionally under Sellman’s guidance, the Pioneers not only ended a string of eight consecutive years without a conference dual meet victory, the women’s program claimed two straight nine-win seasons while the men’s team claimed back-to-back .500 seasons for the first time in almost two decades.
While an undergraduate at Pacific Lutheran, Sellman was a three-time academic and athletic All-American, twice was team captain and most inspirational swimmer, and three times received the team’s outstanding swimmer award.
Patrick Carlisle is in his third season as an assistant coach since starting in 2008 with the PLU swim team. He swam for the Lutes from 2004-08.
Allison Kolp is in her seventh season as a Pacific Lutheran swimming assistant coach after joining the team in 2004. Last year, she served as interim head coach of the men's and women's swimming teams during the medical absence of long-time Lutes head coach Jim Johnson. Under Kolp's direction, the PLU men placed fourth and the Lutes women finished fifth in the Northwest Conference championship meet.
Kolp was a champion sprinter at Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y., from where she graduated in 2002 with a degree in Health Science and in 2003 with a Master's of Science in Physical Therapy.
A native of Falmouth, Maine, Kolp is employed as a physical therapist in Puyallup.
Mike Turcott is in his third season as an assistant coach with the PLU swim team. He started coaching the Lutes in 2008.
Turcott, who returned to Pacific Lutheran more than two decades are initially leaving to become a state trooper, graduated in 2008 with a degree in sociology while also finishing a minor in Aquatics. He swam for the Lutes from 2006-08, and is a member of the Poseidon Aquatics Club in U.S. Masters Swimming.
Turcott is a Washington State Patrol lieutenant and lives in Tenino.
