EIU Hires Matt Bollant

Monday, 17 April 2017

Matt Bollant's career at the University of Illinois ended after four losing seasons and a lawsuit filed by some of his former players. That lawsuit ended up with the allegations against him being unfounded, and now Eastern Illinois University’s Athletic Director Tom Michael said he's ready for Bollant to take Eastern's women's basketball program in a new direction. "Matts interest, desire and passion to come to EIU was very impressive throughout the process. His commitment to his teams and student athletes, mentoring them, caring for them and challenging them was important to me,” said Michael. Bollant said he sees a lot of potential for Eastern's women's program and believes he has the skills to make their team successful in the Ohio Valley Conference. "Relationships are so important in coaching, you know obviously having 20 years of trying to do it the right way and building relationships has meant a lot to me and our program," said Bollant. Grace Lennox has been a key player for the Panthers in the last three years and is confident Bollant has the ability to lead the team to her first winning season. "I came here to have winning seasons. I've had three losing seasons so the most thing I'm excited about is winning, and I feel like we've got a new coach in place who's going to give us the best opportunity to get that done,” said Lennox. "If you want to be great then a lot of the distractions that happen at other schools can't happen here," said Bollant.

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