It is special to coach your alma mater, and Arizona State has nine alumni who are head coaches of its 26 sports who earned an ASU degree. Here is a look at each of them and the degree earned. Trivia note: Sun Devil Missy Farr-Kayle (pictured above) has won NCAA titles as player (1990, assistant coach (2009) and head coach (2017).
SWIM AND DIVE/HERBIE BEHM -- '13 BS (PSYCHOLOGY)
Herbie Behm was elevated from associate head coach to head coach on April 1, 2024, as he had been on the coaching staff since 2018-19. The Sun Devil swim programs have reached new heights over the past few seasons thanks in large part to Behm's efforts under Bob Bowman's watch. Behm has been part of a culture change within the program which most recently resulted in the men's team winning the 2024 NCAA Championship and the women's team recording a top-25 finish. Whether as an assistant or associate head coach, Behm has been an integral part of signing and developing some of the World's elite swimmers. During his time with Arizona State, Behm has helped Leon Marchand put together one of the most three-year runs in the history of the sport. Marchand won an incredible eight NCAA individual titles, best by any Sun Devil across any sport. Marchand earned CSCAA Men's Swimmer of the Year three timees and will be one of the premiere figures in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Other NCAA titles won during Behm's tenure in Tempe include the team's first two relay championships 2024 400 free relay & 400 medley relay. Ilya Kharun won the 200 fly national title, while Zalan Sarkany became the first Sun Devil to win the 1650 free.
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MEN'S GOLF/MATT THURMOND -- '22 MALM (MASTER OF APPLIED LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT)
Matt Thurmond was hired to lead the men's golf program on July 25, 2016, and in his first seven seasons has led ASU to 19 team titles, earned 2019 Pac-12 Coach of the Year and hired the nation's top assistant coach who is now the UCLA head coach. Entering 2023-24 he has led ASU to its best NCAA finishes since 1996 with a tie for third in 2021, a runner-up finish to Texas in 2022 and another trip to match play in 2023. Coach Thurmond earned the Frank Kush Award for 2021-22 and his ASU degree was earned in a different way, he went back to school while coaching.
--Pandemic pushed ASU coach to get master’s degree (by Scott Bordow, ASU News/May 2, 2022)
--ASU Wins – and Studies – Together as Matt Thurmond Goes Back to School (by Brentley Romine, Golf Channel/Oct. 21, 2021)
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WATER POLO/PETRA PARDI -- '18 MEd HIGHER AND POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION; '15 BA PSYCHOLOGY
Petra Pardi has been a part of the Arizona State Water Polo program as a player and as a coach. Recently she was promoted as the program's third head coach on May 18, 2022 after serving as Interim head coach in the 2022 season and becoming an assistant coach in August 2018. Pardi sits in the top-10 of ASU's record books for goals scored (157), assists (71) and points (228) and earned All-American honors as a junior and was a team captain in 2015. She was a member of the 2014 team who earned a birth in the NCAA tournament, and helped coach the 2021 team to a third place finish at the NCAA tournament. Pardi is a proud graduate earning a B.A in Psychology in 2015, and then earning her Master's Degree in Higher Education in 2018 before becoming a assistant of the program.
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FOOTBALL/KENNY DILLINGHAM -- '13 BA INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES
Arizona State University ushered in a new era of Sun Devil Football with alumnus Kenny Dillingham as the 26th head coach of the program, as introduced by Vice President of University Athletics Ray Anderson and University President Dr. Michael Crow on Nov. 27, 2023. A Valley native raised in Scottsdale and a 2013 graduate of Arizona State (Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies/Business and Communication), Dillingham returned home heralded as one of the bright and most innovative offensive minds in college football and one of the most promising young coordinators in the FBS. It marks the first time in Sun Devil Football’s modern era that a graduate has been named the head coach. He returned to Tempe after building his resume with a track record of impressive tenures at Memphis, Auburn, Florida State and most recently as the offensive coordinator at the University of Oregon. Dillingham was an offensive assistant for the Sun Devils in 2014 and ‘15 where, even then, he was regarded around the program as an offensive wunderkind that would have a long and notable career in the coaching ranks at the highest level of college football.
--32-year-old Kenny Dillingham has a plan to make Arizona State a power (by Dan Wetzel, Yahoo.com/Feb. 16, 2023)
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DIVING/MARC BRIGGS -- '02 BAE SECONDARY EDUCATION (PHYSICAL EDUCATION)
On September 1, 2021, the Sun Devil Swim & Dive program officially announced the promotion of Marc Briggs to head diving coach. Briggs, a 2001 Sun Devil graduate, had volunteered with the team since 2011. The program had zero divers at the time of Briggs' hiring, but he hit the recruiting trail hard in his first few months on the job. By January 2022, Briggs had welcomed two transfers to the team in Zachory Lundgren (Hawaii) and Thomas Wesche (GCU). Nearly two weeks after their arrival in Tempe, Briggs had readied his pair of divers for competition, as they both debuted in the team's California road trip to Stanford and Cal in late January. It marked the first time the Sun Devils have participated in the diving portion of competition since spring 2020. Prior to joining the staff full-time, Briggs was a volunteer assistant who coached, organized, and oversaw home meets for the Sun Devils. He spent parts of nine seasons instructing the team's divers, including the weeks leading up to the NCAA Championships. Briggs enjoyed a terrific athletic career with the Sun Devils where he was a three-time All-American and a conference champion from 1999-2001. He was twice-named the team's Most Valuable Diver too. Boasting a proven track record for producing and developing young talent, he spent 17 years as the head diving coach for his own organization, Sun Devil Divers, which focuses on the instruction and development of divers ages five-and-older.
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BASEBALL/WILLIE BLOOMQUIST -- '01 BS MANAGEMENT
Coach Bloomquist was introduced as the new Sun Devil head coach on June 11, 2021, as the 14-year Major League Baseball veteran with more than 20 years of experience in professional baseball returned to the Sun Devil. He spent five years as a Special Assistant to Arizona Diamondbacks President & CEO Derrick Hall, as he was the first Sun Devil to play for the Diamondbacks and spent three seasons with the franchise from 2011-13, serving a key role on the 2011 National League West Championship team. Bloomquist played three seasons at ASU (1997-99) and earned 1999 Pac-10 Player of the Year honors as a junior. In 1998, he tied a College World Series single-game record with five hits in a game while leading a team that competed for the National Championship. Bloomquist was an All-American in both the 1998 and 1999 campaigns and finished his college career with a .394 average before being drafted by the Mariners in the third round of the 1999 draft. The definitive student-athlete, he graduated from ASU in December 2001 with a degree in management from the W.P. Carey School of Business and in 2013, he was inducted into the ASU Sports Hall of Fame. In 2019, he was inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame. He was a CoSIDA Academic All-American in 1999 and a two-time Pac-12 All-Academic First Team selection.
--Why Willie Bloomqust left relaxed life to become ASU's baseball coach (by Scott Bordow, ASU News/April 27, 2023)
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HOCKEY/GREG POWERS -- '99 BS BROADCAST JOURNALISM
Coach Powers was a finalist for the 2019 and 2020 Spencer Penrose Award, which is awarded to the Division I Coach of the Year, and earned the 2018-19 Frank Kush Sun Devil Coach of the Year, as voted on by the 22 head coaches at ASU. In April 2023 he was inducted into the ACHA Hall of Fame. Powers was instrumental in the build and opening of Mullett Arena, Arizona State University's on-campus $140 million-dollar hockey arena that holds 5,000 seats and includes two full-size ice sheets. Mullett Arena opened its doors for the first time on Oct. 14-15, 2022, as the Sun Devils faced Colgate. Mullett Mania caught on quick as a sold out crowd of 5,026 fans descended upon the arena on opening night. Over 24 home games, ASU averaged an attendance of 4,791. Coach Powers has helped lead Sun Devil Hockey to five consecutive ACHA National Tournament appearances, starting with his first year as Head Coach in 2010. In 2012-13, he led ASU to a new program best record and first ever 30 plus win season with a record of 35-8-1, its first ever Final Four Appearance, first ever National Ranking of #1, and a benchmark win over NCAA DI Penn State. During the 2013-2014 season, ASU Hockey won the ACHA DI National Championship, with Powers named ACHA DI National Coach of the Year. The Sun Devils were also named WCHL Conference Champions both for 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, and Powers was named WCHL Coach of the Year for 2013-2014. Powers was also named an ACHA Division I National Coach of the Year finalist in 2012-13, and 2014-15. He graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in 1999 and was inducted into the ASU ACHA Hockey Player Hall of Fame in in 2009. Collegiately, Greg was a three-time ACHA Division I All-American Goaltender while playing for the Sun Devils under the tutelage of Hall of Fame Head Coach Gene Hammett. The Sun Devils qualified for three national championships during Powers’ four-season collegiate career, and he was named Team MVP for the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 seasons.
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WOMEN'S GOLF/MISSY FARR-KAYE -- -- '90 BA ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION
Women's golf head coach Missy Farr-Kaye was named the 10th head coach of the eight-time NCAA Champion Arizona State women’s golf team on June 26, 2015. She completed a trifecta in 2017, winning her third NCAA national championship as a Sun Devil - first as a player (1990), then as an assistant coach (2009), and now as a head coach (2017). Behind All-Americans Linnea Strom and Monica Vaughn (also the individual medalist, sixth in Sun Devil history) and honorable mention All-American Olivia Mehaffey, Farr-Kaye led ASU to a nation-leading eighth NCAA championship in 2017. In March 2018, Farr-Kaye earned the ASU Alumni Achievement award at ASU's annual Founders' Day event. For the team's performance in 2016-17, Farr-Kaye was named Golf Pride Grips WGCA National Coach of the Year, Golfweek National Coach of the Year, West Region Coach of the Year, and Pac-12 Coach of the Year.
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WRESTLING/ZEKE JONES -- '90 BS CORPORATE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
A 1988 Sun Devil national champion, Zeke Jones was hired to lead his alma mater in April 2014 and immediately turned the program into a national powerhouse while continuing the Sun Devils’ tradition of success in the conference. Jones took the helm with a resume that featured accomplishments at the collegiate and international level. The Ann Arbor, Michigan, native was a three-time All-American, three-time Pac-10 champion, and national runner-up at 118 lbs with the Sun Devils from 1987-1990 before going on to earn the 1991 52kg World Champion title. He followed his world title with a silver medal-finish (52kg freestyle) while representing the U.S at Barcelona 1992. He finished his professional career with four World-Cup titles before shifting over to coaching, guiding U.S. Olympians at the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2012 Games. His accomplishments earned him an induction into the Arizona State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004.
SWIM AND DIVE/HERBIE BEHM -- '13 BS (PSYCHOLOGY)
Herbie Behm was elevated from associate head coach to head coach on April 1, 2024, as he had been on the coaching staff since 2018-19. The Sun Devil swim programs have reached new heights over the past few seasons thanks in large part to Behm's efforts under Bob Bowman's watch. Behm has been part of a culture change within the program which most recently resulted in the men's team winning the 2024 NCAA Championship and the women's team recording a top-25 finish. Whether as an assistant or associate head coach, Behm has been an integral part of signing and developing some of the World's elite swimmers. During his time with Arizona State, Behm has helped Leon Marchand put together one of the most three-year runs in the history of the sport. Marchand won an incredible eight NCAA individual titles, best by any Sun Devil across any sport. Marchand earned CSCAA Men's Swimmer of the Year three timees and will be one of the premiere figures in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Other NCAA titles won during Behm's tenure in Tempe include the team's first two relay championships 2024 400 free relay & 400 medley relay. Ilya Kharun won the 200 fly national title, while Zalan Sarkany became the first Sun Devil to win the 1650 free.
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MEN'S GOLF/MATT THURMOND -- '22 MALM (MASTER OF APPLIED LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT)
Matt Thurmond was hired to lead the men's golf program on July 25, 2016, and in his first seven seasons has led ASU to 19 team titles, earned 2019 Pac-12 Coach of the Year and hired the nation's top assistant coach who is now the UCLA head coach. Entering 2023-24 he has led ASU to its best NCAA finishes since 1996 with a tie for third in 2021, a runner-up finish to Texas in 2022 and another trip to match play in 2023. Coach Thurmond earned the Frank Kush Award for 2021-22 and his ASU degree was earned in a different way, he went back to school while coaching.
--Pandemic pushed ASU coach to get master’s degree (by Scott Bordow, ASU News/May 2, 2022)
--ASU Wins – and Studies – Together as Matt Thurmond Goes Back to School (by Brentley Romine, Golf Channel/Oct. 21, 2021)
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WATER POLO/PETRA PARDI -- '18 MEd HIGHER AND POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION; '15 BA PSYCHOLOGY
Petra Pardi has been a part of the Arizona State Water Polo program as a player and as a coach. Recently she was promoted as the program's third head coach on May 18, 2022 after serving as Interim head coach in the 2022 season and becoming an assistant coach in August 2018. Pardi sits in the top-10 of ASU's record books for goals scored (157), assists (71) and points (228) and earned All-American honors as a junior and was a team captain in 2015. She was a member of the 2014 team who earned a birth in the NCAA tournament, and helped coach the 2021 team to a third place finish at the NCAA tournament. Pardi is a proud graduate earning a B.A in Psychology in 2015, and then earning her Master's Degree in Higher Education in 2018 before becoming a assistant of the program.
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FOOTBALL/KENNY DILLINGHAM -- '13 BA INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES
Arizona State University ushered in a new era of Sun Devil Football with alumnus Kenny Dillingham as the 26th head coach of the program, as introduced by Vice President of University Athletics Ray Anderson and University President Dr. Michael Crow on Nov. 27, 2023. A Valley native raised in Scottsdale and a 2013 graduate of Arizona State (Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies/Business and Communication), Dillingham returned home heralded as one of the bright and most innovative offensive minds in college football and one of the most promising young coordinators in the FBS. It marks the first time in Sun Devil Football’s modern era that a graduate has been named the head coach. He returned to Tempe after building his resume with a track record of impressive tenures at Memphis, Auburn, Florida State and most recently as the offensive coordinator at the University of Oregon. Dillingham was an offensive assistant for the Sun Devils in 2014 and ‘15 where, even then, he was regarded around the program as an offensive wunderkind that would have a long and notable career in the coaching ranks at the highest level of college football.
--32-year-old Kenny Dillingham has a plan to make Arizona State a power (by Dan Wetzel, Yahoo.com/Feb. 16, 2023)
Bold. Confident. Passionate. ????
— ASU Alumni (@ASU_Alumni) December 22, 2022
It’s time to get to know @ASUFootball’s new head coach. From his Sun Devil beginnings as a boy to his place leading the team today, Coach Dillingham’s story is one woven with maroon and gold.https://t.co/UeoCf0cnIf#ForksUp #ASUAlumni
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DIVING/MARC BRIGGS -- '02 BAE SECONDARY EDUCATION (PHYSICAL EDUCATION)
On September 1, 2021, the Sun Devil Swim & Dive program officially announced the promotion of Marc Briggs to head diving coach. Briggs, a 2001 Sun Devil graduate, had volunteered with the team since 2011. The program had zero divers at the time of Briggs' hiring, but he hit the recruiting trail hard in his first few months on the job. By January 2022, Briggs had welcomed two transfers to the team in Zachory Lundgren (Hawaii) and Thomas Wesche (GCU). Nearly two weeks after their arrival in Tempe, Briggs had readied his pair of divers for competition, as they both debuted in the team's California road trip to Stanford and Cal in late January. It marked the first time the Sun Devils have participated in the diving portion of competition since spring 2020. Prior to joining the staff full-time, Briggs was a volunteer assistant who coached, organized, and oversaw home meets for the Sun Devils. He spent parts of nine seasons instructing the team's divers, including the weeks leading up to the NCAA Championships. Briggs enjoyed a terrific athletic career with the Sun Devils where he was a three-time All-American and a conference champion from 1999-2001. He was twice-named the team's Most Valuable Diver too. Boasting a proven track record for producing and developing young talent, he spent 17 years as the head diving coach for his own organization, Sun Devil Divers, which focuses on the instruction and development of divers ages five-and-older.
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BASEBALL/WILLIE BLOOMQUIST -- '01 BS MANAGEMENT
Coach Bloomquist was introduced as the new Sun Devil head coach on June 11, 2021, as the 14-year Major League Baseball veteran with more than 20 years of experience in professional baseball returned to the Sun Devil. He spent five years as a Special Assistant to Arizona Diamondbacks President & CEO Derrick Hall, as he was the first Sun Devil to play for the Diamondbacks and spent three seasons with the franchise from 2011-13, serving a key role on the 2011 National League West Championship team. Bloomquist played three seasons at ASU (1997-99) and earned 1999 Pac-10 Player of the Year honors as a junior. In 1998, he tied a College World Series single-game record with five hits in a game while leading a team that competed for the National Championship. Bloomquist was an All-American in both the 1998 and 1999 campaigns and finished his college career with a .394 average before being drafted by the Mariners in the third round of the 1999 draft. The definitive student-athlete, he graduated from ASU in December 2001 with a degree in management from the W.P. Carey School of Business and in 2013, he was inducted into the ASU Sports Hall of Fame. In 2019, he was inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame. He was a CoSIDA Academic All-American in 1999 and a two-time Pac-12 All-Academic First Team selection.
--Why Willie Bloomqust left relaxed life to become ASU's baseball coach (by Scott Bordow, ASU News/April 27, 2023)
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HOCKEY/GREG POWERS -- '99 BS BROADCAST JOURNALISM
Coach Powers was a finalist for the 2019 and 2020 Spencer Penrose Award, which is awarded to the Division I Coach of the Year, and earned the 2018-19 Frank Kush Sun Devil Coach of the Year, as voted on by the 22 head coaches at ASU. In April 2023 he was inducted into the ACHA Hall of Fame. Powers was instrumental in the build and opening of Mullett Arena, Arizona State University's on-campus $140 million-dollar hockey arena that holds 5,000 seats and includes two full-size ice sheets. Mullett Arena opened its doors for the first time on Oct. 14-15, 2022, as the Sun Devils faced Colgate. Mullett Mania caught on quick as a sold out crowd of 5,026 fans descended upon the arena on opening night. Over 24 home games, ASU averaged an attendance of 4,791. Coach Powers has helped lead Sun Devil Hockey to five consecutive ACHA National Tournament appearances, starting with his first year as Head Coach in 2010. In 2012-13, he led ASU to a new program best record and first ever 30 plus win season with a record of 35-8-1, its first ever Final Four Appearance, first ever National Ranking of #1, and a benchmark win over NCAA DI Penn State. During the 2013-2014 season, ASU Hockey won the ACHA DI National Championship, with Powers named ACHA DI National Coach of the Year. The Sun Devils were also named WCHL Conference Champions both for 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, and Powers was named WCHL Coach of the Year for 2013-2014. Powers was also named an ACHA Division I National Coach of the Year finalist in 2012-13, and 2014-15. He graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in 1999 and was inducted into the ASU ACHA Hockey Player Hall of Fame in in 2009. Collegiately, Greg was a three-time ACHA Division I All-American Goaltender while playing for the Sun Devils under the tutelage of Hall of Fame Head Coach Gene Hammett. The Sun Devils qualified for three national championships during Powers’ four-season collegiate career, and he was named Team MVP for the 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 seasons.
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WOMEN'S GOLF/MISSY FARR-KAYE -- -- '90 BA ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION
Women's golf head coach Missy Farr-Kaye was named the 10th head coach of the eight-time NCAA Champion Arizona State women’s golf team on June 26, 2015. She completed a trifecta in 2017, winning her third NCAA national championship as a Sun Devil - first as a player (1990), then as an assistant coach (2009), and now as a head coach (2017). Behind All-Americans Linnea Strom and Monica Vaughn (also the individual medalist, sixth in Sun Devil history) and honorable mention All-American Olivia Mehaffey, Farr-Kaye led ASU to a nation-leading eighth NCAA championship in 2017. In March 2018, Farr-Kaye earned the ASU Alumni Achievement award at ASU's annual Founders' Day event. For the team's performance in 2016-17, Farr-Kaye was named Golf Pride Grips WGCA National Coach of the Year, Golfweek National Coach of the Year, West Region Coach of the Year, and Pac-12 Coach of the Year.
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WRESTLING/ZEKE JONES -- '90 BS CORPORATE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
A 1988 Sun Devil national champion, Zeke Jones was hired to lead his alma mater in April 2014 and immediately turned the program into a national powerhouse while continuing the Sun Devils’ tradition of success in the conference. Jones took the helm with a resume that featured accomplishments at the collegiate and international level. The Ann Arbor, Michigan, native was a three-time All-American, three-time Pac-10 champion, and national runner-up at 118 lbs with the Sun Devils from 1987-1990 before going on to earn the 1991 52kg World Champion title. He followed his world title with a silver medal-finish (52kg freestyle) while representing the U.S at Barcelona 1992. He finished his professional career with four World-Cup titles before shifting over to coaching, guiding U.S. Olympians at the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2012 Games. His accomplishments earned him an induction into the Arizona State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004.