Michael Freeze was named Assistant Director, Olympic Sports Performance in July 2026 to work with Men’s and Women’s Soccer programs.

Freeze comes to Evanston after spending two years as an Assistant Sport Performance Coach at Loyola University Chicago. He had direct oversight of all performance aspects for the Men’s Volleyball and Women’s Soccer Programs at Loyola. While working with Freeze, the Men’s volleyball program attained their First MIVA Conference regular season and tournament championships in 10 years while also earning two NCAA tournament appearances in the two years under Freeze. Additionally, the program saw multiple All-Conference and All-American honors over the last two seasons.

Prior to Loyola University Chicago, Freeze was an Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach for University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, serving for two and a half years from 2022 to 2024. He oversaw all aspects of performance for Illini Softball and Men’s and Women’s Gymnastics. Freeze helped the Illini Men’s Gymnastics program to a Regular Big Ten Championship, and NCAA National 3rd Place finish, and Multiple All-Conference Big Ten and All-American honors. Freeze also coached multiple All-Conference and All-American Honor athletes in Softball and Women’s Gymnastics, while attaining NCAA Tournament Appearances with both programs.

Freeze also has a coaching stop at University of Arizona (2021-22). He completed a sport performance internship with Loyola University Chicago in 2019 and a graduate assistantship at Aurora University in 2020, while earning his Master of Science in Kinesiology.

He graduated from North Park University in Chicago for his undergraduate degree in Kinesiology while competing for the Baseball program as an outfielder.

Freeze is a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).