Mark Robichaud enters his second season as the head football coach at UMass Dartmouth with a 5-5 overall record after his first season. After winning only one of his first three games after taking over the Corsairs in 2006, UMass Dartmouth won four of its last six to finish his first campaign with a .500 mark.
Robichaud (ROE-bi-shawd), who has served as an assistant at Bishop Stang High School since 2004 and spent nine years as an assistant at Shepherd College, an NCAA Division II university in West Virginia, succeeded Bill Kavanaugh, as only the third head football coach in the 20 years football has been a varsity program at UMass Dartmouth.
ASpringfield College graduate, Robichaud, served two different stints as an assistant coach at his alma mater sandwiched around a year at Milford Academy. He then served as the inside linebackers coach at Wesleyan and was defensive coordinator while teaching physical education at the University of Chicago.
In 1992, he began a nine-year stay at Shepherd, where he served as defensive line coach, recruiting coordinator and athletic-academic advisor. During his tenure, the Rams went 54-31, posted eight winning seasons, were the champions of the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference five times, and advanced to the NCAA Division II Playoffs three times, twice reaching the second round. He served under Monte Cater, whose teams have won 140 games in 20 seasons, ranking him as the all-time leader at Shepherd in both victories and conference championships with 10. He served as an assistant at Brown during the spring of 2000, and since that time has assisted at Portsmouth High School in Rhode Island and Bishop Stang while teaching physical education at Westport Middle School.