Derek Rousseau joined the Virginia staff in September 2025 and coaches the sprinters and jumpers for the Cavaliers.
During the 2026 Outdoor Track & Field season, Rousseau led Celia Rifaterra to second team All-America honors with a tied for 13th place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Rifaterra also earned second team All-ACC honors with a fifth place finish at the ACC Outdoor Championships.
Under Rousseau’s direction, Caleb Holman earned second team All-ACC accolades with a sixth place finish in the long jump making a season best (7.54m) and fourth place finish in the triple jump with a personal best and Virginia No.7 all-time mark (15.86m). Holman qualified to the NCAA East First Round in the triple jump.
At the ACC Outdoor Championships, Grace Smith earned finished sixth in the long jump marking a season best (6.24m) to earn second team All-ACC honors. Ariel Fletcher qualified to the final in the 400m and went on to finish eighth in the final.
In his first season at Virginia, Rousseau led Carly Tarentino to second team All-ACC honors in the women’s high jump at the 2026 ACC Indoor Championships. Tarentino finished fourth with a season best mark of 1.72m.
Rousseau comes to Charlottesville after a successful eight seasons as a member of the MIT coaching staff overseeing the men’s and women’s jumpers and sprinters. He landed at MIT after four years as the head coach for the State University of New York at Oswego. In addition, Rousseau was also a member of the MIT Sports Performance staff, where he worked with student-athletes from across the Institute’s 33 intercollegiate programs.
In the 2022-23 season, Rousseau’s athletes captured a pair of NCAA individual national championships as Kenneth Wei earned the indoor long jump title and Enoch Ellis captured the 110-meter hurdle championship at the outdoor championship meet. At the conclusion of the season, Rousseau was named as the USTFCCCA Men’s Outdoor Track and Field National Assistant Coach of the Year.
In his first season with the Engineers, Rousseau was honored as the USTFCCCA East Region Men’s Indoor Track and Field Assistant Coach of the Year and in 2018-19, Yorai Shaoul captured the NCAA indoor and outdoor triple jump national championships. In the 2021-22 season, Rousseau coached Kenneth Wei to both the NCAA indoor and outdoor long jump titles and the outdoor high jump NCAA championship by Kimmy McPherson.
Rousseau holds several coaching certifications, including both the USATF Level III and IAAF Level 5 certifications in the jumping events and is a USTFCCCA Sprint / Hurdle / Relay Specialist. Rousseau also holds a USTFCCCA Strength and Conditioning license and is a NASM Certified Performance Enhancement Specialist.
Rousseau received his M.Ed in Counseling from Providence College and earned his Bachelor in Psychology from Sacred Heart University in Connecticut in 2004.