Matt Bos was hired as Concordia-St. Paul's first head women's and diving coach in September, 2019 in advance of the team's inaugural season.
The program is set to make its first splash in 2020-21, giving Bos an academic year to lay the foundation for the program including a first recruiting class. His resume includes a 2013 Summit League Women’s Coach of the Year honor.
“I am incredibly humbled and honored to have been given the opportunity to lead the women’s swimming and diving program at Concordia as we embark on the adventure of bringing a brand new NCAA program to life,” said Bos. “I want to thank Regan McAthie for the opportunity and look forward to working with her and the staff at CSP to get this program up and running.”
He continued, “CSP’s values, top-rated academic programs and commitment to producing nationally-ranked athletics programs makes this the ideal place to build an incredible swimming and diving program and give student-athletes a chance to be successful.”
Bos spent eight years at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) where he was hired as the second head coach in the program’s history in 2011. While leading the Jaguars, Bos turned the program into perennial contenders in the Horizon League with the men producing four second place finishes along with a third place spot while the women finished second twice and third twice. The program also had three individual conference titles under his leadership.
“Adding women's swimming and diving has been a project in the works for the last few years,” said McAthie. "Bringing in Matt is the final piece to our start-up plan and we are incredibly fortunate to have someone with his level of talent and experience lead the program."
His coaching abilities made a clear impact, taking the reins of a last place finish in the Summit League prior to his hiring, to second and third, respectively, at the 2013 Summit League championships, earning the conference coach of the year honors. The turnaround happened even faster, guiding both programs to fourth place finishes in the league in his first year at the helm. That year, he also coached the NCAA National Champion in the platform dive.
Bos started his coaching career at his alma mater as a graduate assistant at Eastern Illinois University, helping the Panthers to a 2002 Midwest Classic Championship.
After an assistant coaching stop at the Division III level at Trinity University (Texas), he earned his first head coach appointment in 2003-04 for the Swordfish Swim Team while also serving as assistant coach at Niles West High School (Ill.).
His career also spanned overseas, working for a year and a half as coaching director at Swimming Wanganui in New Zealand where he coached athletes from seven different countries, helping the team to its first-ever Top-20 national ranking in 2004-05 including a Bronze Medal Olympian in the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics in the 400 freestyle relay for the Dutch.
When he returned to the U.S., Bos spent three years as head swim coach for the San Antonio Wave, a top swim club in Texas, where he coached several Junior and Senior National qualifers. Bos also coached Jimmy Feigen to National Swimmer of the Year honors as well as two national high school records.
He earned his first collegiate head coaching position in 2008, returning to Eastern Illinois for three seasons at his alma mater. In his three seasons as head coach of the Panthers, the program saw 37 records fall. During his tenure at EIU, Bos had a nationally-ranked (Top-25) recruiting class on the men’s side in 2007.
He earned his bachelor’s (2000) and master’s (2002) degrees from Eastern Illinois University and was a member of the Panther swim team from 1996-2000. He was a two-time Midwest Classic Champion in the breaststroke and was a senior captain.
He and his wife, Amanda, also a former Division I swimmer, have two daughters and a dog named Milo and have recently relocated to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
