And so, a reorganization of the tennis teams is officially undone.
On Wednesday, Marquette athletic director Mike Broeker announced the hiring of Brett Barnett as head women’s tennis coach. Barnett comes to MU from South Dakota, where he was the head women’s tennis coach from 2014 til now.
First, some quotes from the official Marquette press release. We have AD Mike Broeker:
“We’re excited to welcome Brett as the new head coach of Marquette women’s tennis,” Broeker said. ”Brett brings with him a proven track record of success, leading a competitive program at South Dakota, but just as importantly, he has a strong reputation for building meaningful, lasting relationships with his student-athletes.”
“We welcome Brett, his wife Julie, and their daughters Mia and Annika to the Marquette community and the city of Milwaukee,” Broeker added. ”I also want to extend a sincere thank you to Jud Shaufler for his leadership throughout this search process. His support has been invaluable, and I look forward to his leadership of our men’s tennis program.”
And Brett Barnett on his new job:
“I am truly honored to be named the head coach at Marquette,” Barnett said. ”I want to extend my sincere thanks to Mike Broeker, Adrienne Ridgeway, Danielle Josetti, Jaime McGaver and Jud Schaufler for this incredible opportunity. From the moment I stepped onto campus, it was clear that Marquette is a special place — one where I immediately felt at home and I’m deeply grateful for the warm welcome I’ve received from everyone involved.
“I’m especially excited to connect with the student-athletes on the team and begin building strong relationships with each of them before they return to campus in August,” Barnett added. ”I look forward to helping them grow, not only on the court, but also as students and individuals. They’ll know that they have a coach who truly cares about them as individuals and is committed to their success in all aspects of life. Marquette offers tremendous resources and outstanding tennis facilities that will allow both the men’s and women’s programs to thrive. I’m excited to work alongside Jud Schaufler — to collaborate, share ideas, and continue to elevate both programs together.”
The mention of Jud Schaufler from both men does bring us to an interesting part of this whole thing. Back in May of 2018, Steve Rodecap was named Director Of Tennis at Marquette, giving him administrative oversight of both his men’s team as well as Jody Bronson’s women’s team. In June 2020, Bronson announced her retirement, and at that time, this was included in the press release:
Bronson’s retirement will allow for the continuation of the staff re-organization for both the men’s and women’s programs, which began in May of 2018 when current head men’s coach Steve Rodecap was named Director of Tennis. Rodecap will continue to oversee both programs, while assistant coaches Jud Shaufler (men’s team) and Dusan Medan (women’s team) have been promoted to associate head coach and will both directly report to Rodecap.
The new staff structure will allow Rodecap, Shaufler and Medan the ability to work on-court with both programs moving forward, increasing the staff members available to the student-athletes to three, after being two in previous seasons.
Rodecap left Marquette in August of 2023, about eight months after it became publicly known that MU would be ending athletic scholarship support for the men’s and women’s tennis teams. At the time, that meant that the aforementioned Jud Schaufler was elevated to the title of Interim Director of Tennis, and at some point, the interim was just dropped without fanfare. Along the way, the Sprovieri family committed to a $4 million donation to the athletic department to 1) restore scholarship support for the tennis teams and 2) grow the scholarship strength for the teams.
I’m not sure how all of that fits together with Jayson Wiseman and Caio Barros serving as assistant coaches for both teams under Schaufler’s direction this past year — much less Jody Bronson being listed on the roster as an assistant for the women’s team as well — as well as neither Wiseman nor Barros being currently listed on the 2025-26 roster pages. But with the official hiring of a specific women’s tennis head coach does make it clear — and the press release says this, too — that the era of restructuring for a Director of Tennis and two assistant coaches serving underneath them to cover both teams together is over. Whatever the point of doing that was back in 2018, it’s no longer the best way forward for Marquette. That’s particularly interesting, given that Mike Broeker was just quoted in the Journal Sentinel this morning about the university’s mission to optimize budget strategies across the entirety of campus.
Does the Sprovieri donation cover so much that it makes it financially sensible to move in this direction for the guidance of the tennis teams? Was the original restructuring done with cost cutting in mind because of the lack of scholarship funding, but the return of scholarships makes it easier to spend money on tennis now?
It’s all very interesting, if not extremely critical to the operation of the Marquette athletic department.
Oh, right, Barnett’s credentials as a tennis coach. Here you go:
Barnett arrives in Milwaukee after 11 seasons (2014-15 to 2024-25) leading the women’s program at South Dakota. He led over 20 players to all-conference accolades, the team to a national ranking and made four trips to the Summit League Tournament finals during his tenure. The program’s success off the court included an athletic department-high team grade-point-average, a CoSIDA Academic All-American (Habiba Aly, 2022) and multiple individual academic accolades.
Barnett takes over a women’s tennis program that hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since Bronson guided them to the only three appearances in program history in 1997, 1998, and 1999. According to the Big East’s record book, Marquette has never made it to the conference tournament finals, so if Barnett can replicate his success with the Coyotes with four appearances in 11 seasons, that’s a pretty notable jump up in results for the Golden Eagles relative to the past 20 years of competition.
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