From top left: Head coaches Aaron Gouge, John McPhail, Shereka Wright, John Sauerhage, Tania Schatow, KT Turner, Logan Goulding and Catherine Matranga.
File photos by The Shorthorn staff
As UTA enters its first season in the United Athletic Conference, here is a look at the fall 2026 head coaches who will lead their teams into a new era.
Volleyball
Tania Schatow played professionally in Europe for six years and coached youth volleyball overseas before returning to the U.S. to coach collegiately. Schatow was a volunteer assistant at Louisiana State University, then an assistant coach at Miami University and Pacific University, before taking the UTA head coaching job in 2025.
Cross country
John Sauerhage is the longest-tenured head coach at UTA, having run the cross country team since 1995. Sauerhage previously ran the track and field program until last year, when he retired from the head coach position.
Despite reports at the time, Sauerhage is not fully retired, and will continue to run the cross country program and is the assistant track coach, focusing on the team’s long-distance runners, according to a team spokesman.
Across more than 31 years of coaching, Sauerhage has won 33 conference titles and coached 45 All-Americans, 63 NCAA Championship qualifiers and five athletes that have competed in the world championships, according to previous Shorthorn reporting.
Basketball
Men’s head coach KT Turner played college basketball for three schools, including UTA. Despite being a Maverick for a season and a half, Turner never played in a game due to eligibility rules and a season-ending injury.
He finished his playing career elsewhere before becoming an assistant coach at various colleges, including Wichita State University, the year the team made a Final Four run. A few stops later, in 2023, Turner landed his first head coaching role at UTA. Since, UTA has had three conference tournament wins, including a trip to the finals in 2024.
Women’s head coach Shereka Wright was a three-year starter at Purdue University and was inducted into the Purdue Athletics Hall of Fame in 2020. She was taken with the 13th pick of the 2004 WNBA Draft, going to the Phoenix Mercury in a draft-night trade. Wright played professionally for two seasons before retiring after an Achilles tear.
After retiring, Wright spent 14 combined seasons as an assistant at major programs before signing her first head coaching deal in 2020 with UTA. Since, UTA has nine conference tournament wins and an NCAA tournament appearance in 2022.
Men’s Movin’ Mavs coach Aaron Gouge played for the team in college and won the 2006 national championship, hitting the game-tying free throws late in the title game.
Gouge started playing for Team USA in 2007, and since then, Arlington has declared every Nov. 2 as Aaron Gouge Day. He has won gold in the 2007 and 2015 ParaPan American Games, the 2014 world championships and the 2016 Paralympics.
In 2022, he was hired to be the Movin’ Mavs head coach.
John McPhail was named head coach of the Lady Movin Mavs in August 2026.
Before assuming the position, McPhail was a volunteer assistant for the team. He also served as a player-coach of the professional Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks, where he led the team to national championships in 2024 and 2026.
In each of McPhail’s four seasons on the Lady Movin’ Mav sidelines, the team made it to the national championship and lost to The University of Alabama. His biggest task will be trying to finally get over that final hump and bring the program its third national title, and first since 2018.
Golf
Men’s head coach Logan Goulding played college golf at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo. After graduation, he played professionally before switching to coaching.
Goulding head coached at Hawai’i Pacific University and Denver University. With Denver, he led the Pioneers to a conference championship and an NCAA tournament berth in his first year.
Goulding left Denver to caddy in the PGA Tour, but quickly got tired of the travel and switched back to coaching, taking the head coaching role at UTA in 2024.
Women’s head coach Catherine Matranga played college golf at Texas Christian University and professionally on the LPGA Symetra Tour, now the Epson Tour, for seven years.
In 2016, Matranga became associate coach for the inaugural UTA women’s golf team. After the first season, she was named interim head coach, and in 2019, Matranga was officially promoted to head coach.
In nine seasons with Matranga heading the program, UTA has finished in the top three in the conference tournament once and in the top five twice, with both coming in the last two years.
@TyRoland06