CLAREMONT, Calif. – Claremont-Mudd-Scripps’ Director of Athletics Michael Sutton has announced that David Schwarz, a two-time NCAA Division III national championship-winning head coach, has been hired as CMS’ new head women’s tennis coach. Schwarz takes over a CMS team that won 21 matches in 2014 and made it to the NCAA Quarterfinals after winning the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) and West Region titles for the third season in a row.
“Dave has a wonderful background of coaching in the Division III world, and was a very successful coach at Middlebury College with the men’s team, where he developed and raised their program to the top of Division III tennis,” said Sutton, the CMS Director of Athletics and William B. Arce Professor and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. “He is an outstanding student of the sport, tactician, motivator of student-athletes and developer of team chemistry, and we thought he would be very inspiring as well as a great leader of our women’s tennis program. We are happy to have him on board.”
Teams led by Schwarz have won two NCAA Division III national championships, and in 2004, he was named Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) National Coach of the Year. He brings 14 years of head coaching experience to Claremont from the NCAA Division I and Division III levels, most recently as the head coach of the Brown University men’s tennis program, where he went 57-35 over four seasons (2011-2014) at the Ivy League program. Prior to Brown, his head coaching career began at the Division III level for the men’s team at Middlebury College (2001-2010).
“I am excited about coming back to coach at a NCAA Division III program. To me, this is the purest form of college athletics,” said Schwarz. “Claremont is a great environment to coach in because tennis is a signature sport at CMS and there is an established women’s tennis tradition. CMS represents some of the top academic institutions in the country. I wanted to get back to coaching in Division III, and coming to CMS is a great opportunity for me.”
During his tenure at Middlebury, Schwarz became the most successful men’s tennis coach in program history, taking over a program that did not have a NCAA postseason appearance prior to 2001 when he arrived on campus. In 10 seasons at Middlebury, he had an overall record of 174-37 (.825), while leading the Panthers to national prominence. Under Schwarz’s guidance, Middlebury made eight-straight trips to the NCAA final four, with the 2004 squad capturing the school’s first NCAA Tennis national title. Schwarz’s 2006 and 2007 teams set school records at the time, with 22 wins each season. Those records were eclipsed in 2010 when the Panthers earned a 23-2 mark en route to Middlebury’s second national championship in men’s tennis.
The ITA Division III National Coach of the Year in 2004, Schwarz was named NESCAC Coach of the Year in 2002, 2004, 2007, and 2010, and earned ITA Regional Coach of the Year honors in both 2009 and 2010.
A 1989 graduate of Cornell, where he played four years of varsity tennis, Schwarz began his collegiate coaching career at his alma mater in the fall of 1996 as the assistant men’s and women’s tennis coach. Following one year in that role, he became the assistant men’s coach (1997-2000), spending the 1998-99 season as an assistant with the women as well. The Northeast Region Assistant Coach of the Year in 2000, Schwarz was also the managing director of the Cornell Tennis & Squash Center.
Originally from Providence, Rhode Island, Schwarz received a master’s degree from Cortland State (N.Y.) in 1994.