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Florida Gulf Coast University athletic director Carl McAloose began entertaining and continued interviewing three women’s and three men’s soccer coaching candidates on Wednesday.

The process will continue through the weekend and McAloose hopes to name those posts by late next week.

The women’s swimming and diving coach likely will be named by Friday, McAloose said. The finalists already have visited campus.

All three sports were added for FGCU to have the necessary amount to make its move from Division II to Division I. The sports will make their debuts in 2007. FGCU accepted the Atlantic Sun Conference’s invitation to join on May 10.

The lists of those who want to help FGCU make the moves to D-I and the A-Sun are impressive.

“We couldn’t be happier with the candidates,” McAloose said. “Really, in our wildest imaginations, we never thought we’d get the group we’ve had in. Very excited about it.

“I think any one of the ones we’ve brought to campus — and those we didn’t even bring to campus — are great coaches. It’s amazing.”

The swimming pool of candidates has been narrowed to three — Bucknell head coach Jerry Foley, Towson head coach Pat Mead and Florida Atlantic University assistant Neal Studd.

Foley led both Bisons swim teams to No. 18 finishes last season in the CollegeSwimming.com Mid-Major Poll. In seven seasons, he has compiled a 38-16 record with the women.

Mead has coached both Towson teams as well, and his wife, Maureen, is his diving instructor. Last season, the women placed seventh in the Colonial Athletic Association Championships. In seven seasons, he has compiled records of 52-24 with the women and 49-21 with the men.

The associate head coach, Studd has spent eight seasons with the Owls, helping them make the D-II to D-I transition and to the women’s Sun Belt Conference championship last season.

FGCU’s aquatic center is ready to go, as apparently are the coaching candidates.

“I think just about everybody we talked to is a little amazed that we’re this far along,” McAloose said. “I keep hearing the word ‘potential.’ At every interview we’ve done, that word keeps coming out. Sometimes that word can be good and sometimes it can be bad, but there is a great deal of potential with the facilities we have and with the funding we have.

“I think they’re excited about it and think they can build a winning program with the tools we’re able to give them.”

There are three remaining men’s soccer candidates.

Bob Butehorn is an assistant at Penn, where he helped the Quakers to the 2002 Ivy League title, their first in 22 years. They were 9-6-1 last season. A University of Tampa grad who played for the Spartans’ 1981 national championship team, Butehorn was the head coach at St. Bonaventure from 1995-99 and his teams held both regional and national rankings.

John Leamy is the head coach at Missouri State. Last season the Bears were 12-4-2. The winningest coach in school history, Leamy was named the Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year in 1995, 1997 and 1999 and was the Midwest Region Coach of the Year in ‘97 and ‘99.

Mike Avery joined first-year Louisville coach Ken Lolla’s staff in March after six seasons as an assistant at Notre Dame, including last season’s Sweet 16 run. He is 62-58-5 as a head coach at Cal State-San Bernardino and Bethel College.

The women’s soccer field has been pared to five and two already have visited campus.

Brian Dooley, the head coach at Florida Atlantic, is 143-49-11 in seven seasons with the school. Last season the Owls went 16-4-1 and led the country by shutting out 16 of their 21 opponents for a .792 percentage, the fifth-highest in NCAA history. Under Dooley’s direction, the Owls have won three of the last four Atlantic Sun regular-season titles (the school is moving to the Sun Belt).

Dooley’s latest recruiting class has been rated tops in the Sun Belt and he went 53-12-4 in four seasons as the head coach at Barry University.

Jim Blankenship, a Dooley assistant for three seasons, also still is in the running. He’s a former head coach at Lynn Univeristy.

Jim Stefankiewicz has led the men and women at Indiana University-Purdue University-Fort Wayne for three seasons. The women’s team won the United Soccer Conference Tournament last season.

Jim Rudy is 279-130-22 in 18 seasons at the University of Massachusetts and took his team to the 1993 Final Four. The Rollins College graduate also was the head coach at Central Florida, leading the Golden Knights to the national championship game in 1982 and to the Final Four in 1987.

Carrie Terrill is a former Toledo assistant.

The new soccer head coaches will have major input as FGCU prepares the facilities, which will be located between the aquatic center and Swanson Stadium.

McAloose hopes to have all three new coaches on the move soon after his offers.

“Hopefully the day after we make the offer, they’re thinking about the position, going out and making contacts and things like that,” McAloose said. “But we understand they’re probably going to have camps and things like that to deal with back home.

“It’s probably going to vary, but I’d love to have them on board sometime in July.”