UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State women's volleyball head coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley completed her coaching staff on Tuesday, announcing Daniel Gwitt and Brian Toron as assistant coaches. Gwitt, a 2007 Penn State graduate, returns to Happy Valley after spending the past four seasons as an assistant coach at Indiana. Toron will be elevated to a coaching position after serving as the team's director of operations for the past two seasons.
"I am thrilled to have both Dan and Brian on staff," said Schumacher-Cawley. "Dan is a high energy coach who has had spent time in the conference. He is a proud Penn Stater who will be a major asset in all areas of the program. His ability to communicate and train will be exactly what our team needs. Brian has had several roles in the college game. He is knowledgeable, energetic and has a strong work ethic. He has experience as a director of operations, an assistant coach and an interim head coach. All his experiences will add to helping each student-athlete on this team."
In just his first season at Indiana in 2018, Gwitt helped head coach Steve Aird, a former assistant coach at Penn State, lead the Hoosiers to immediate improvement as they totaled four more wins overall and six more victories in the Big Ten over the prior season. The Big Ten win total was the program's most since 2010. A key factor in the improvement was the defensive effort coached by Gwitt. The Hoosiers went from 277th in the nation in total blocks the year before to 15th in 2018 and went from 273rd in blocks/set to 36th.
Gwitt proved himself as a successful recruiter at Indiana while working to get student-athletes to compete in the toughest conference in the nation. He helped put together the 2020 recruiting class that was ranked 15th in the nation, the highest-ranked class in program history. It included the second-highest ranked individual recruit (No. 32) in program history and two Under Armour All-Americans.
A native of Eden, New York, Gwitt graduated from Penn State in 2007 with a degree in communication arts and sciences. He was a member of the men's volleyball team under current head coach Mark Pavlik and helped the Nittany Lions to the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA) Championship and a trip to the NCAA Final Four.
Following his time at Penn State, Gwitt joined the staff at Centenary College, a Division I program in the Summit League at the time, and took over as interim head coach in 2007. He was the youngest Division I head coach in the country at the time. He spent three seasons with the Pride, coaching more than 70 matches by the age of 24.
In addition to his collegiate coaching experience, Gwitt served as the director of operations and master coach for two of the largest and most successful clubs in Southern California. He took multiple teams to the Open Division for the Girls Junior National Championships. All of those teams finished in the Division 1 SCVA rankings, and his most recent 17s team finished as the top ranked team in the SCVA.
Toron, a native of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, also brings collegiate coaching experience to the program from before his time as Penn State's director of operations. He began as a volunteer assistant coach while at Delaware before being elevated to director of operations after he graduated with a degree in political science in 2015. Just one year after earning his degree, he took over as interim head coach during the 2016 season. With Toron at the helm, the Blue Hens closed the season with an 8-2 run in the CAA after starting 0-6. They also won their first two matches in the conference tournament as the sixth seed, upsetting third-seeded Northeastern and second-seeded College of Charleston to advance to the championship match for the first time since 2012.
Following his success as Delaware's interim head coach, Toron made the jump to the Big Ten as Northwestern's technical director in 2018. He helped the Wildcats improve 70 spots in the RPI from the previous season with his work with practice planning, inputting DataVolley information and producing scouting reports.
Toron returned to the CAA as an assistant coach with Hofstra for two seasons in 2018 and 2019. Hofstra went 42-20 overall and 23-9 in the conference during the two seasons with Toron on the coaching staff. In his first season as an assistant coach, the Pride went 25-8 overall and earned a berth in the NCAA Tournament after winning the CAA regular season and tournament titles. It was the team's first CAA title since 2014.
