Cumberland University

Rich Williams begins his 13th season as head golf coach in 2025-26. He also serves as the department's Game Operations Director, a title added during the summer of 2016.

During his tenure, Williams has coached 10 NAIA All-Americans--Austin Garrett in 2013-14, Ryan Botts in 2015-16, and Ana Laura Pages Preuss and Raquel Romero Valverde in 2018-19, Isaac Walker in 2020-21, Emma Hermansson and Nathalie Nutu in 2021-22, Anna Krieger in 2022-23,  Christian Lindgreen and Tom Scullion in 2023-24--alongside 63 All-Mid-South Conference players.

During his tenure, Cumberland has captured numerous MSC Freshman of the Year awards by Raquel Romero Valverde, Ana Laura Pages Pruess, Maria Pilar Scenna, Adrian Steeger, Isaac Walker, and Anna Krieger. He has also had two Mid-South Conference Players of the Year by Anna Krieger and Tom Scullion. Scullion was also the first Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year finalist in program history. 

His men's teams have won three MSC Tournament Championships, earning an an automatic bid to the three-straight NAIA Championships from 2018-21. The men have won three regular season titles winning in 2013, 2021, and 2022. The men's team have made the NAIA National Championships in five of the last seven seasons and have made the cut twice with a best 10th-place finish in 2021. 

The women's team have claimed three MSC titles. In 2019, he led them to a MSC regular season title before finishing a program record seventh in the NAIA Championships. The women won their first MSC tournament championship in 2022 and backed that up with a regular season title in 2023. The women have made seven appearances at the NAIA National Championships including six-straight. 

Williams has earned Mid-South Conference Men's Coach of the Year honors in 2013 and was named the Women's Coach of the Year in 2017 and 2019. 

Williams has served as the Mid-South Conference Women's Sports Chair and the Conference Rater for the past six seasons. Williams was elected to the Men's National Committee in 2022 as the second Vice President and now serves as the President.

In his Game Operations role, Williams oversees all aspects of set-up and breakdown for home athletic events at football, basketball, volleyball, soccer, wrestling, baseball and softball, including staffing for ticketing and marketing, security for officials, locker rooms for visiting teams and scheduling for the Dallas Floyd Phoenix Arena.

Williams received his bachelor's in Psychology from Middle Tennessee in 1992.