Former Mountaineer Named Head Coach at Cleveland State

Former Mountaineer Rob Summers has been named the newest head coach at Cleveland State, the program announced this week.

🗣️ What they’re saying about new head coach @RobSummers33! @coachdgates on his excitement for our new leader! #GoVikes pic.twitter.com/YWGt8ouKMt

— Cleveland State Men’s Basketball 🏀 (@csu_basketball) April 10, 2025

Summers, who played at West Virginia for two seasons from 2005-07, had been an assistant coach at Missouri. He had been an assistant coach at Cleveland State from 2019-22.

“We are thrilled to welcome Rob Summers, his wife Emelie, and his children Robert, Marina and Genoveva back to Cleveland State as our new men’s basketball coach,” CSU athletic director Kelsie Gory Harkey said in a statement. “I am confident Coach Summers will continue the success of the men’s basketball program he helped build as an assistant.”

Summers, a seven-footer, averaged 4.4 points and 4.6 rebounds in the 2006-07 season at WVU under former head coach John Beilein. He played in 69 total games and made 36 starts as a Mountaineer. Summers was on West Virginia’s 2006 Sweet 16 team and 2007 NIT title team.

Cleveland State is Summers’s first head coaching job since he led Division II Urbana from 2014-17. He also has coaching stops at Glenville State, James Madison and Miami (Ohio).

“Rob and I not only played together at WVU but we worked together in our first coaching job as assistants,” former Mountaineer Joe Mazulla told Cleveland State. “From him, I learned the importance of recruiting and relationship building. Since then, I have watched him grow in teaching the game and he has worked extremely hard to become a well-rounded coach. He has great energy, passion and desire to learn.”

Former Cleveland State head coach Daniyal Robinson became the head coach at North Texas this season, succeeding Ross Hodge, who WVU hired.

Former WVU coach Bob Huggins was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Cleveland State job.