Nearly three months after the resignation of Randy Waldrum, athletic director Jack Swarbrick named Theresa Romagnolo, the head coach at Dartmouth and former assistant coach at Stanford and San Diego, as the new women’s soccer head coach Wednesday.
Romagnolo, the fourth head coach in program history, takes over after Waldrum, one of college soccer’s all-time winningest coaches, resigned in January in order to coach the Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League. Waldrum left Notre Dame after guiding the Irish to eight College Cups and two national championships in 2004 and 2010 over the course of 15 seasons.
The Irish finished last season ranked 14th in the nation with a record of 13-8-1 and advanced to the third round of the NCAA tournament. Seven starters, including two all-ACC selections, return for Notre Dame.
“I look forward to building upon the legacy that [former head coaches] Chris [Petrucelli] and Randy [Waldrum] have created and continuing to compete for national championships,” Romagnolo said in an official press release.
Romagnolo spent the past three years coaching Dartmouth, culminating in 2012 with a 13-4 record, the most wins by the Green Wave since 2000. Before Dartmouth, she served three seasons as an assistant coach for a Stanford program that advanced to consecutive national championship games in 2009 and 2010.
While at Stanford, Romagnolo helped to recruit three Hermann Trophy winners and six other all-Americans. She comes to Notre Dame along with 11 freshman who have been ranked as a top-five recruiting class.
Romagnolo began her coaching career at Stanford as a volunteer assistant in 2002, then spent the next five years as assistant coach at San Diego. During her tenure, San Diego advanced to the NCAA tournament three times and was ranked in the top 10 nationally in 2007.
As a player, Romagnolo played for Washington, won a Pac-10 title and was named all-Pac-10 four times before spending three years playing for the San Jose CyberRays in the WUSA.
