Rob Dow, the coach who led the University of Vermont men’s soccer team to a national championship last year, is leaving his job to coach at Penn State, UVM’s athletics department announced Thursday.
Dow leaves the men’s soccer team as by far its most successful coach in program history. The team won 109 games under his direction, lost just 41 and tied 21, according to a press release. He has been UVM’s head soccer coach since 2017 and has been on the team’s coaching staff since 2012.
Most notably, Dow’s team won the 2024 NCAA Division I tournament last December with a 2-1 victory over Marshall University. That brought UVM its first national trophy, in any major sport, in school history.
“Coaching at Vermont the last 14 years has been one of the greatest honors of my life,” Dow said in the release from UVM Athletics. “My family and I will always cherish our time in Vermont and the memories we made together.”
Dow’s departure comes just weeks after UVM men’s soccer was upset in an early round of this year’s NCAA Division I tournament. The team, which was the top seed in the country heading into the competition after an undefeated season, lost 3-2 to Hofstra University on Nov. 23.
Penn State men’s soccer has won two NCAA championships, though unlike at UVM, it’s been a long time since those wins — 1954 and 1955. The school, which is in State College, Pennsylvania, is a member of the NCAA’s Big Ten Conference. That’s one of the most prominent collegiate sports divisions in the U.S., with 11 soccer teams spread across the country. UVM’s conference, America East, has eight soccer teams in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
With Dow’s departure, Brad Cole — the UVM men’s soccer associate head coach — will take over the team’s top job on an interim basis, UVM said Thursday.