Wisconsin hired Jeff Rohrman, Maryland’s top assistant for the past seven years, as its fourth men’s soccer coach, assistant athletic director John Jentz announced Monday.

“We’re thrilled to have a coach with the overall experience and dedication to the sport of soccer that Jeff possesses,” Jentz said. “His Midwest ties were important, as was his extensive hands-on experience with all aspects of the nationally prominent Maryland program. Jeff was diligent in his pursuit of the Wisconsin job, and he demonstrated great enthusiasm for this position and a strong vision for the future of the program.”

Jentz interviewed Rohrman Thursday after treating him to a Wisconsin women’s basketball game at the Kohl Center Wednesday.

He was the second candidate interviewed for the job. A day earlier, Jentz met with UW-Milwaukee head coach Louis Bennett. After Jentz’s other choice, John Trask, signed as an assistant with the D.C. United of Major League Soccer, those two were narrowed from a list of nearly 100 applicants.

The job opened Jan. 4, when former coach Kalekeni Mtalika Banda resigned.

Rohrman, who knows Bennett and played at UWM for two years in college, said he has not yet had a chance to speak with the Panthers’ coach. He accepted the Badger job over the weekend.

“As soon as I knew it was open, I sent in a letter of interest,” Rohrman said. “It?s a sort of homecoming. Having grown up in the Twin Cities and played in Milwaukee, there’s a lot of good friends and good people in soccer that I know in both states. So that part is a big bonus, being able to come back and do those things.”

Rohrman admitted he had been interested in the job when Wisconsin fired Jim Launder after the 1996 season. However, in his second year at Maryland at the time, he said his situation was too good to leave. Rohrman, who has a wife and two young children, said it will be difficult to leave College Park, but when the Wisconsin job opened a second time it presented too exciting an opportunity.

The 38-year-old Rohrman said he knows little about the nature of the program under Banda, who went 37-58-4 in five years.

“Obviously, not being in that region, I don’t get a lot of the talk,” Rohrman said. “I know they’ve done fairly decently the last couple years, but I haven’t heard that much about it. I’m really going to focus on where we’re going to go from here.”

The signing comes at an important time for UW, with national signing day just two days away. Rohrman said he will make an effort to contact Wisconsin’s recruits some time in the next several weeks, if not before the deadline. In the meantime, former Badgers assistant Michael Johnson has been overseeing the process.

Rohrman does not know whether Johnson will remain on the staff, but he is eager to move forward with the recruiting.

“We’ll take a very active and aggressive role to try and get the best Wisconsin kids to get energized and excited about coming to the school,” Rohrman said. “I have fond memories of playing UW when I was at UWM. It was a great program back then; I had a lot of respect for it, and I think we have to get back to that.

“We have to really establish the recruiting ties, not only in Wisconsin, but Minnesota and the Chicago area; I think there’s a lot of talent in those areas that needs to get tapped into.”

Rohrman’s Midwest ties reach back to his playing days. He played for two seasons at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minn., where he was an All-American and team MVP as a sophomore. Rohrman played his final two years at UW-Milwaukee, earning all-state honors and serving as team captain.

His first coaching experience was as head coach at Bethany Lutheran from 1990 to 1991. He then spent one year with the U.S. Olympic Committee coordinating the under-20 national team. He joined the Maryland staff in the spring of 1995.

He was deeply involved in aiding Terps head coach Sasho Cirovski, with whom he played in college. At Maryland, Rohrman went to the NCAA Tournament in six of the last seven years, including a Final Four appearance in 1998. The Terrapins recorded a 94-50-7 overall record while Rohrman was on staff.