Celebrating the best off-field leaders of the season.
June 23, 2026 by Calvin Ciorba and Josh Katz in Awards
Each year, Ultiworld presents our annual College Awards. Our staff evaluates the individual performances of players from throughout the season, talking to folks around college ultimate, watching film, and look at statistics, voting upon the awards to decide those to be honored. The regular season and the college Series are both considered, with extra emphasis for performances in the competitive and high-stakes environment at Nationals.
Our final D-III award podium is for the Coaches of the Year. As so many teams have added more and more sideline-savvy consultants to their roster with less asked of a single head coach, this has essentially morphed into “Coaching Staff of the Year.” Coaches can impact the game in so many ways — tactics, motivation, communication, personnel management, program development, skill-building, etc. — and it can be hard to divine what exactly each has contributed to their team. But good coaching is something we feel “we know it when we see it.”
- All-American First Team
- Player of the Year
- All-American Second Team
- Offensive Player of the Year Award
- Defensive Player of the Year Award
- Breakout Player of the Year Award
- Rookie of the Year Award
- Coaches of the Year Award
- Full Awards Voting Breakdown
D-III Men’s 2026 Coaches Of The Year
HC Matt Forster, ACs Russell Smith and Christopher Hickman (Carleton CHOP)
In our preseason picks, every single one of our staff members predicted Carleton CHOP to be in the top four after their 2025 semifinal appearance and limited number of graduates. They even appeared the our #2 spot in our preseason rankings. Yet, heading into Nationals, very few people were predicting a championship appearance from CHOP. Why? Well, arguably their two best players– Nathan Wang and Dash Brenner– faced season ending injuries at the end of the year.
CHOP put all that doubt to bed once games began in Waukegan, easily handling pool play, dismantling a very good Claremont team in quarters, and breezing past a dynasty Oklahoma Christian squad in the semifinal. This run was a testament to Matt Forster, Russell Smith, and Christopher Hickman, who had to reshape CHOP’s entire strategy after their injury losses. The coaching staff’s development of their players throughout the year allowed them to slot younger pieces into high-pressure situations and trust them to handle those moments with ease. Every single member of the roster managed to play a pivotal role in CHOP’s success, and the rise of young talent like Max Resnik, Julian Kägi, and Henry Horstman Olson defied expectations. For a roster whose only postseason loss came in the national final, CHOP’s coaching staff more than earned Coach of the Year recognition.
– Calvin Ciorba
First Runner-Up
Luke Bleers and Caleb Szydlo (St. Olaf)
After St. Olaf failed to reach Nationals in their title-defense year, it would have been fair to assume the Berzerkers might slide back down the rankings in 2026. Instead, they did the opposite, staying in the top 10 for nearly the entire season and coming within a point of a semifinal appearance. That success can be heavily attributed to the work of Luke Bleers and Caleb Szydlo. Bleers and Szydlo developed an entire roster of talented contributors, with all but three players recording a positive statistic at Nationals. Pair that depth with a team that played exceptionally well within its system and executed smart defensive schemes, and it becomes almost a no-brainer that this award went to the St. Olaf coaches in 2026.
– Calvin Ciorba
Second Runner-Up
AJ Abraham and Allen Boitz (Colorado Mines)
Colorado School of Mines shocked many of us when they qualified for Nationals this spring. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have been so surprised. Entropy proved that their regular season and their Series performance was no fluke on the big stage, and the coaching of AJ Abraham and Allen Boitz was a big reason why. Entropy’s offensive execution in particular stood out, every player following a system that dictated exactly what cut should come next like a computer programming algorithm. Getting a group of college players to play in sync with one another requires months of intentional practicing and loads of patience, making it an easy choice to put Entropy’s coaching duo on the COTY podium.
– Calvin Ciorba
