Josh Molino named new head coach of FGCU men’s tennis team – Eagle Media

There will be a new face at FGCU Athletics as they have hired Josh Molino as their new head coach for men’s tennis. After the position was vacant mid-season and the Eagles were stuck at the bottom of the conference standings, Molino is looking to bring success back to the green and blue teams.

Molino comes to the Eagles with ten years of coaching experience. His coaching career began in 2011 at Detroit Country Day High School in Beverly Hills, Michigan. He coached the boys tennis team for three years and eventually left school to coach junior tennis at various clubs across the country. He started at the Sports Club of West Bloomfield in 2011 and finished his career at the Country Club of Orlando in 2017.

After six years as a junior tennis coach, Molino moved to the collegiate level in 2018 to become head coach of the men’s tennis team at the Kansas Wesleyan University Coyotes in Salina, Kansas. He was most successful with the Coyotes and received numerous awards over the course of five years. The most notable awards are the 2022 Wilson ITA NAIA Central Region Men’s Coach of the Year and the 2022 Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference (KCAC) Coach of the Year.

These successes led Molino to the University of Tulsa, where he was named associate head coach of the men’s tennis program. During that time, he helped lead the Golden Hurricanes to a No. 1 seed in the NIT tournament and earned several ranking victories en route to the championship. These successes resulted in two players being selected to the ACC first team and Pierce Rollins being sent to the NCAA tournament as a singles qualifier.

“Tulsa is a traditional brand in college tennis, but so are the champions of the Florida Gulf Coast Conference,” Molino said.[Former FGCU Men’s Tennis Head Coach] CJ [Webber] has built such a great program here, and conference championships are kind of the standard. So we’re going to continue to recruit good people and develop these guys on and off the field.”

Molino comes to Southwest Florida with the intention of transferring his success at the University of Tulsa to FGCU. The Eagles enter the 2024-25 season with a chip on their shoulder. A midseason coaching change and an inexperienced roster resulted in the 2023 ASUN Conference Champions finishing at the bottom of the standings last season.

“The pressure is definitely on,” said sophomore Pablo Paternostro. “Last year we felt like we were the youngest team in the country. And this year, with the new guys coming in and everyone else getting a year older, we’re more experienced.”

There will be no major changes to the FGCU roster next season. Most players will be sophomores, with transfers and freshmen yet to be announced.

“We have a young team, so we want to build these guys up,” Molino said. “We have a few years with this group to make them the best version of themselves.”

The Eagles will play numerous non-conference games and tournaments before joining the ASUN Conference in the spring. Although their official schedule has not been announced, the men’s tennis team is ready for a fresh start with a new leader at the helm.

“It’s just an exciting time,” Molino said. “It’s a lot of work, a lot of travel, a lot of drudgery. I’m just incredibly blessed and fortunate for the opportunity that FGCU has given me, and now I get to take advantage of it.”