Gole resigns in middle of season

Shocked, surprised and disappointed.

Those three words summed up both swimming teams' reaction to swimming head coach Mark Gole's resignation Dec. 15. Gole resigned to become the swimming head coach at William Jewell College.

Assistant coach Tim Sandfort also resigned just days before Gole made his announcement.

"The team was pretty devastated," senior James Barber said. "Obviously, we didn't see it coming. We were thinking it could happen at the end of the season, possibly. We were totally blindsided."

Sandfort resigned to take a job with Dell Computers in Austin, Texas. Sandfort joined Gole's staff in Sept. 2008.

"I was fairly shocked and upset that they both left within the same day," said Danielle Odenthal, interim swimming assistant coach. "I think that was the general consensus of the team was pretty much shock and ‘Now what?' kind of feeling. Because going from having a head coach that has been here for years and that's the only coach you've ever trained for in college — especially for the seniors — to lose in the middle of your last season is kind of hard."

Athletic Director Jerry Wollmering said the resignations were unrelated.

Gole was in the midst of his sixth season as the coach for the men and women's teams. He started during the 2005-06 campaign and guided the women's team to its sixth straight national championship that season. After finishing second in the nation the next year, Gole led the team to a seventh title during the 2007-08 season.

Gole earned the NCAA Div. II Coach of the Year award during the 2005-06 season.

"I'm looking at eventually starting a family and my girlfriend is in the Kansas City area, and she's been dying to get me here for the last six or seven months," Gole said. "I've told her there's no college swimming in Kansas City. I love what I do. I'm a college swimming coach and I want to be a college swimming coach. Then out of nowhere, I heard through the grapevine that William Jewell College was adding men's and women's swimming."

William Jewell recently reinstated its swimming program and will compete in the Great Lakes Valley Conference at the Div. II level. Gole said his main job is recruiting and letting people know about the new program, as the swimming program will start during the 2011-12 season.

Gole said Jan. 1 was his first day as William Jewell's head coach, and the early start was because of recruiting purposes.

"[William Jewell's athletic director] asked a point-blank question, ‘Would I be willing to make the move at halfway?' because they want their coach in place as soon as possible," Gole said. "Everything I learned about the job the next week on an interview made it attractive. Obviously from a location standpoint, but also what they want to do, it was something that I felt that I could not turn down."

Gole said the situation was not ideal and that he wanted to make sure to tell both Truman teams the news in person. He said he tried to work out a way to stay throughout the season at Truman, but the position at William Jewell began Jan. 1.

"I talked to my mom and dad all of the time and my mom was like, ‘You can't leave your team. You can absolutely not leave your team,'" Gole said. "I felt like I had the devil and angel on my shoulder, my mom being the angel and my dad being the devil. My dad was like, ‘You look out for you. You're always looking out for your team and never doing what's best for you.' I feel bad that I did something selfish, and I wish things would have worked out different."

Wollmering said that when he found out that neither Gole nor Sandfort could stay for the rest of the season, Truman immediately started the search for an interim.

Wollmering also said they reassured the team they would not be canceling the season no matter what happened.

"We met with the captains and said, ‘Hey, sorry we're in this situation and one way or another, we're going to get through it,'" Wollmering said. "It was at a weird time too because a lot of the team had already left. By this time it was Thursday. It was during finals and the whole team wasn't here anymore."

Gole started coaching swimming in 1995, but Truman provided him his first coaching job at the collegiate level. The women's team never finished below fifth at nationals, while the men's team  never finished better than 11th under his leadership.  

"I have friends that have been coaching for 30 years and have never won a national championship, and I was fortunate to win one in my very first year as a head coach," Gole said. "I hope every swimmer at Truman State has a successful season and seasons to come. I'm going to miss them."