McKendree College head males’s and girls’s water polo coach Colleen Lischwe has died. She was 34.
Lischwe was killed in a crash involving a semi-truck on Wednesday morning in St. Clair County, the place McKendree is positioned exterior of St. Louis. The crash was reported on Interstate 44 on the Vandeventer Avenue exit at 6AM.
In keeping with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Division, Lischwe’s car was struck by the semi-truck. The semi-truck driver had seemed down to select up a drink moments earlier than the collision. Visitors had slowed down and the truck driver didn’t decelerate, slamming into the again of Lischwe’s Toyota Prius.
She was rushed to the hospital and later died from her accidents.
The motive force of the semi-truck driver was not injured and police carried out a blood draw as a part of the investigation. Investigators haven’t but decided whether or not icy circumstances could have been an element within the crash.
The police say the motive force of the semi-truck driver is cooperating with the investigation and acknowledged that he had seemed down previous to the crash.
Lischwe first joined this system as a graduate assistant in its first season, she was named the top coach of the ladies’s program in February 2017. A yr later, she was named the top coach of the lads’s program. She entered the 2024 season as the one feminine head coach of a males’s NCAA water polo program.
In her first season main the ladies’s program, she was named the 2017 CWPA Midwest Division Coach of the Yr after taking the Bearcats to their first Midwest Division Championship match. In her first season taking up the lads’s crew, she led them to a 15-13 file, which was their first profitable season, and was named the CWPA Division II Coach of the Yr, amongst many different Coach of the Yr honors.
As an athlete, she was named the Missouri Excessive College Feminine Participant of the Yr from 2005-2007 earlier than taking part in at Division I Marist Faculty. Throughout her time there, the crew gained two MAAC convention championships, an Eighth-place end on the 2007 NCAA Championship match, and a seventh place end on the 2009 NCAA Championship match.
McKendree concluded its males’s water polo season in November, whereas the ladies are scheduled to play their first recreation on January 25.
Previous to teaching at McKendree, Lischwe served as the top water polo coach at Kirkwood Excessive College in St. Louis, MO. Moreover, Lischwe acted because the Midwest Zone Ladies’s Cadet Coach for from 2010-2016 by way of the USA Water Polo’s Olympic Improvement Program and reprised this function in 2019. Along with her collegiate teaching duties, Colleen additionally coaches each the boy’s and lady’s teams at St. Louis Space Polo, a membership crew in her house city of St. Louis, Mo.
From the college:
McKendree College is deeply saddened by the passing of Collen Lischwe, head coach of our males’s and girls’s water polo groups. Colleen was a beloved member of the McKendree neighborhood, identified for her unwavering dedication to her student-athletes and dedication to fostering an setting of development, excellence, and management.
Colleen embodied what it means to be a servant chief and cherished her alternatives to show and develop younger women and men. She was a detailed good friend and colleague to many, and helped to create the particular bond that exists inside the McKendree neighborhood.
The College provides its deepest condolences to the household of Coach Lischwe throughout this extremely troublesome time. As we course of this loss collectively, the College has made accessible counseling providers and different assist sources to all college students, college, and employees.
Plans to honor Colleen’s reminiscence and legacy might be shared within the coming days.
