Cardinal wrestling head coach Kerry McCoy announced yesterday that he is leaving Stanford for a head coaching position with the University of Maryland. McCoy, who was hired in 2006, just completed his third full season as Stanford’s coach.

“The decision to leave Stanford was very hard for me,” McCoy said in a statement to GoStanford.com. “I truly love Stanford and everything associated with the program and the University, the team, the parents, the alums, the administration, everything. The last three years of my life have been incredible. The decision to head back east was ultimately made because it’s going to be a better situation for my family.”

McCoy will be leaving behind a program that is clearly in transition, as top performers Tanner Gardner at 125 pounds and Josh Zupancic at 156 pounds just closed out their collegiate careers this winter. As the pair of multiple All-American award winners and team captains graduate, the Cardinal will need to look to a new core group of athletes, possibly including junior Luke Feist, sophomores Zack Giesen and Jake Johnson, redshirt freshman Lucas Espericueta and true freshman Kyle Barrett, who came on strong late in the 2008 season, to lead the team forward. Now, that change will have to come under a new head coach, as well.

As Stanford’s head coach, McCoy guided the Cardinal to a 19th place finish nationally last season, its second highest ever. McCoy also coached five wrestlers to the NCAA championships in each of the past two years, a program record.

Stanford’s former head coach was previously a lauded athlete on the international stage, representing the United States in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney as well as in the 2004 games in Athens, finishing fifth and seventh, respectively. McCoy also won five consecutive U.S. National Freestyle Wrestling Championships from 2000-04.

It was truly an interesting sequence of events that sent McCoy to Maryland, as former Terrapins head coach Pat Santoro accepted a head coaching position at Lehigh, where both he and McCoy served as assistant coaches under longtime coach Greg Strobel. When Strobel moved into his new role as an athletic department official, Santoro got the call to replace him, and McCoy replaced Santoro in turn at Maryland.

McCoy’s short tenure with the Cardinal is not unusual for the program: aside from one notable exception (Chris Horpel from 1980-2001), Stanford wrestling coaches have never stayed on for more than five seasons in the over 90-year history of the sport on the Farm.

At Maryland, McCoy will inherit a program that tied for 21st place at the NCAA Championships this season and is headlined by Hudson Taylor at 197 pounds, who placed third nationally as just a sophomore.

A release on GoStanford.com promised that a nationwide search for the next Stanford coach would begin immediately.