University of California, Santa Barbara

James Wolff joined the UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo staff as an assistant coach on Aug. 12, 2025. Wolff has 15 years of coaching experience under his belt, as well as 18 years of water polo officiating experience. A formative figure in the growth of the sport on the East Coast over the last decade plus, he now returns to the state where he played his collegiate water polo.
 
Wolff was most recently the head coach of LaSalle’s women’s water polo team, leading the Explorers from 2023. During his tenure in Philadelphia, he coached attacker and program record goal-scorer Francesca Co’ to consecutive All-MAAC First Team selections, as well as recruiting 2025 All-MAAC First Teamer Martina Bonet Saez. The Explorers were also competitive in the classroom under Wolff, with the team posting the best team GPA among all Division I programs in his first season.
 
Prior to taking the reins at LaSalle, Wolff was an assistant coach for the Iona men’s water polo program. During his tenure with the Gaels, utility Jordan van Reeken posted a stellar 2022 season, going on to earn First Team All-MAAC honors and an ACWPC All-America Honorable Mention.
 
The bulk of Wolff’s coaching experience is at the elite club level, as he worked with Greenwich Aquatics from 2010 to 2021. He built the club into one of the top teams not only on the East Coast but nationally, becoming the first East Coast team to reach the USA Water Polo National Championship in 2016. He led Greenwich to another final at USA Water Polo’s Rocktober event, taking silver there. In 2017, he was making history again by becoming the first East Coast club to win a medal at the USA Water Polo Junior Olympics in the platinum/gold era, taking bronze. Later that year, he was awarded the Ted Newland Distinguished Coach Award for the Northeast Zone.
 
He continued to succeed, leading the Greenwich U14 team to back-to-back bronze medal finishes at the USA Water Polo Championships Cup. And in 2021, he finally lifted a national championship, defeating San Diego Shores in the US Club Championship in San Diego. Also that summer, Wolff led Greenwich to a silver medal at the Futures Water Polo Tournament, widely regarded as the most elite tournament in the country.
 
On top of his coaching experience, Wolff is also a highly regarded water polo official, making regular appearances at the Collegiate Water Polo Association and Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships. Formerly the Northeast Zones Head Referee for USA Water Polo, Wolff has officiated at the 2018 Men’s Senior National tournament and the 2021 NCAA Tournament play-in game between Princeton and Fordham.
 
A former student-athlete at Pepperdine, Wolff is the only active coach in the country to have also played and officiated the sport at the Division I level. And his time at Pepperdine was his first meeting with Wigo and the Gauchos; Wolff’s freshman year in Malibu was Wigo’s first as head coach at UC Santa Barbara. The two also crossed paths in 2016, this time working together at the 2016 Olympics, where Wolff was a production assistant for NBC’s coverage of water polo, which Wigo was a commentator for.