Salem, Va. --- Roanoke College Director of Athletics Curtis Campbell is pleased to announce upcoming changes within the golf program.
 
Effective July 1, current head coach Richie Waggoner '93 will become director of golf operations as the College is adding women's golf as an NCAA varsity sport beginning in the fall of 2025.

"I am excited about the addition of women's golf as a collegiate sport. It was the only women's sport sponsored by the ODAC that we did not offer, so I'm glad to be adding it at this time," Campbell said.
 
Roanoke College will become the eighth Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) school to sponsor women's golf. The Maroons will join Averett, Bridgewater, Lynchburg, Randolph-Macon, Shenandoah, Sweet Briar, and Washington and Lee in competing for the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Women's Golf Championships starting in 2025-26.
 
Waggoner took over the Roanoke golf program as part-time head coach in the summer of 2019. When he was hired by then Director of Athletics Scott Allison, the program was in a decades-long slumber that saw the team ranked 235 (of just over 250 teams) in the national rankings. With a new incoming group of golfers, the program had to navigate a COVID shutdown, leading to a pair of partial seasons. The program expanded its recruiting efforts into the northeast and began to show steady improvement throughout the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Each season, the Maroons were invited to better, more nationally competitive tournaments.
 
"We couldn't have made the progress that we did without the support of the College, our family, friends, alums and the generosity of the Mike Haley Golf Endowment," Waggoner said. "We have been able to climb the national rankings due to our nationwide recruiting, our enhanced competitive schedule and the ability to take multiple teams to different events throughout the year." – Richie Waggoner '93
 
With a full roster, Roanoke made a significant leap forward during the 2021-22 season. The team started the year just outside the top 100 in the country and built momentum throughout the season. At the 2022 ODAC Men's Golf Championships, Roanoke lead after 12 holes and held the runner-up spot for most of the 54-hole event. W&L passed the Maroons during the final nine holes, but the third-place ODAC finish was the best in program history for more than a decade. The total of 865 was 65 strokes better than any other Roanoke score since the conference went to 54 holes in 2007. The Maroons finished the year ranked 91st in the nation.
 
"I would like to acknowledge and thank Mike Haley '73 for his generous support of the golf program. His support has enabled us to make great strides in the program," Campbell said.
 
Since 2019, the program has won a pair of tournaments (the 2022 Virginia State Golf Association Intercollegiate and the 2023 Kinder-Williams Invitational), and had two All-ODAC selections, four ODAC All-Tournament golfers and three different Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) All-American Scholars. It enters the spring of 2024 with a national ranking of #35.
 
"I would like to thank Coach Waggoner for his contributions as the current head coach and for agreeing to help us launch the women's program," Campbell said. "This is a great day for Roanoke College Athletics."