By Sophie Kaufman on SwimSwam
The wheel of NCAA swimming turns, and head coaches come and pass.
As we continue to reflect on the recently concluded 2024-25 season, we’re reviewing how the teams under first-year head coaches performed, mainly focusing on their teams’ performance at their conference championships or, where applicable, the NCAA Championships.
The coaching carousel is always spinning and there were many Division I coaches in their first year with a new program this year. To help make this list feel more manageable, we’ve broken them into two categories: new hires and promoted staff. If you think we missed someone, let us know.
New Hires
Texas: Bob Bowman
Let’s start with the most obvious success. In his first season as the Longhorns’ Director of Swimming, Bob Bowman led the men’s team to a 2025 NCAA title after winning the SEC title in their first year in the conference. The Longhorns improved from their seventh-place finish last season and Bowman became the first head coach of a Division I men’s program to win an NCAA title in back-to-back years with two different teams.
Texas A&M: Blaire Bachman
The Aggies underwent sweeping changes during the offseason. Long-time women’s head coach Steve Bultman retired, which prompted the athletic department to combine the programs and bring in former Virginia assistant Blaire Bachman to run both programs.
The 2024-25 season was a down year for both, as the women slipped from 3rd to 8th at the SEC Championships—a slide not only explained by Texas’ arrival—and the men from 5th to 4th. It was a similar story at the NCAA Championships as the women went from 14th in 2024 to 26th and neither individual point scorer returns next season. The men actually improved their standing at NCAAs from last year, moving from 16th to 12th. But with Baylor Nelson and Jacob Wimberly in the transfer portal, there are still major questions to be resolved for both programs.
Arizona: Ben Loorz
The Arizona men’s and women’s programs finished 29th at their respective NCAA Championship meets under first-year head coach Ben Loorz. This isn’t Loorz’s first head coaching job, he was formerly the head coach at UNLV (more on them in a minute). The women didn’t get on the board last season so this marked a big improvement for them, especially as this was the first championship for each of the seven qualifiers.
Then men held about the status quo, slipping to 29th after a 28th place finish last season. Gage Dubois and Haakon Naughton scored for the Wildcats, while Tomas Lukminas placed 20th in the 200 freestyle, within range of a second swim at his first NCAA championships. The team closed out the meet with a program record 2:47.64, finishing 12th and earning HM All-America honors.
The Arizona men’s and women’s teams finished 2nd at their first Big XII Championships.
Hawaii: Steve Allnutt
Alum Steve Allnutt took over the University of Hawaii’s program at the end of August, in time for the 2024-25 season. The program sent relays to the women’s NCAA Championships two years ago, and the men’s NCAA Championships last season. They didn’t send relays this season, but senior Karol Ostrowski returned to the big dance this season. He broke his conference and program record with a 42.43 in the 100 freestyle.
Ostrowski contributed to the Rainbow Warriors’ four Big West record-setting performances at the conference championships, helping the men’s team place second overall. The freshman Macie Wheeler had a big performance on the boards at conferences; she swept the diving events, becoming the first Rainbow Wahine diver to complete the feat at a conference championship since 2016. The women’s team took third at the Big West championships behind UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego.
The women’s and men’s teams combined for 12 Big West titles, including two relays for both the women (200/400 free relay) and men (200 free relay, 200 medley relay).
Boston College: Dara Torres
Both Boston College and decorated Olympian Dara Torres took big swings this summer as Torres agreed to become the head coach of a new-look coaching staff for an Eagles team looking to rehabilitate its image after a very public suspension.
There were several bright spots for the team throughout the season. The men won the midseason Terrier Invite and both teams won against Commonwealth Ave rival Boston University. Jack Doyle and Samantha Smith set multiple school records at the ACC Championships, highlighting a 13th-place finish for the men and 15th for the women.
Bowling Green: Tanner Barton
There are many metrics by which to value a program’s success. But in the new world of college athletics, where athletic departments across the country are evaluating just that, a vote of confidence from your athletic director goes a long way. That’s what first-year head coach Tanner Barton just got from Bowling Green’s athletic director Derek van der Merwe. When speaking to the Toledo Blade about what keeps him motivated after a couple of years on the job, van Der Merwe mentioned Barton, saying “…[Tanner Barton] digging us out of last place and competing in the championship. Our track and field, all these pieces inspire me.”
Led by graduate student Ava Vial, the Bowling Green women finished sixth at the MAC Championships, the program’s best in three years.
Penn State: Hollie Bonewit-Cron
Most recently the head coach at Miami-Ohio, Hollie Bonewit-Cron took over as the Penn State head coach this season. The men’s team had a winning dual meet record, picking up wins against Navy, Pitt, Chicago, Army, and West Virginia. The women’s team earned wins against Navy, Chicago, and West Virginia.
Both teams slipped from their 2024 positioning at the Big Ten Championships, though, even accounting for the additions of USC and UCLA (women only) from the dissolved Pac-12 conference. The men slipped to ninth after finishing seventh last season and the women were 12th after finishing ninth in 2024.
Miami-OH: Samantha Pitter
Under first-year head coach Samantha Pitter, who arrived from the University of Pittsburgh after Bonewit-Cron left for Penn State, the Miami-OH Redhawks had a strong season. The men’s team won its fifth straight conference title and the first men’s Missouri Valley Conference title since 2002. They won by a healthy margin, scoring 820 points to beat SIU by over a hundred-point margin. Pitter was named the MVC Men’s Swimming Coach of the Year.
The next week, the women finished third of eight teams at the Women’s MAC Championships and placed four on the All-MAC First Team. Further, Madeline Padavic became the third-fastest mid-major performer in the women’s 100 backstroke (51.52) and qualified for the NCAA Championships, where she placed 38th.
West Virginia: Brent MacDonald
The West Virginia Mountaineers earned the first dual meet win of the Brent Macdonald era in January. At a tri-meet with Villanova and Duquesne, the men were victorious against Villanova, while the women won against Duquesne.
Overall, the women placed ninth out of ten teams at the Big XII Championships, while the men were seventh out of seven teams. En route to their placement in the final standings, the team set multiple program records. The team’s season wasn’t over after the conference championships, as sophomore Owen Recker qualified for the men’s NCAA Championships on the boards.
George Washington: Chico Rego
Chico Rego took over as the GW head coach after serving on the Georgia Tech coaching staff. He was named the A-10 Men’s Coach of the Year this season and was just one of the Revolutionaries’ end-of-year honorees. Connor Rodgers was awarded the A-10 Men’s Most Outstanding Swimmer of the Year honors. Shea Stratton won the A-10 Men’s Most Outstanding Rookie, and Olivia Paquette won the A-10 Women’s Most Outstanding Diver for a second straight year.
Rego extended the women’s and men’s programs’ reign at the top of the conference as both teams repeated as the winners of the A-10 crowns.
St. Thomas: Matt Bos
It was the Tommies’ fourth year as a Division I program and Matt Bos’ first as the team’s head coach, but the team reached new heights this season. As both teams rewrote the program record book, the women’s and men’s teams earned their highest finishes in team history at the Summit League Championships. The woman earned 395 points (also the most in program history) to take fourth overall. The mean earned 352 points for a program-high fifth-place finish.
Toledo: Jacy Dyer
A Toledo alum and Hall of Famer, Jacy Dyer returned to her old stomping grounds after serving as the head coach at Fairfield University. This year, Toledo placed 8th in the team standings at the Mid-American Conference Championships led by sophomore Leah Evans who broke the 100 backstroke program record and finished 8th in the 200 butterfly. They were seventh last season.
Fairfield: Jake Lichter
After Dyer departed, Jake Lichter took the reins at Fairfield after spending six years with the Big Red at Cornell University. The women replicated their runner-up finish from last season at the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships, earning 597 points. The men’s team improved from fourth in 2024 to third this season, scoring 615.5 points.
Manhattan: Brian Hansbury
This was Brian Hansbury’s first year as a collegiate head coach, having previously worked at the club level. The Manhattan women tied with Saint Peters for last at the MAAC Championships, eight points out of 10th place. The men’s team was last as well, earning 113 points. However, the team still set several program records during their season. The team extended its season to the ECAC championships, where Joe Brennan broke the 100/200 breaststroke program records to highlight the team’s 10th/11th place finishes. He broke the 200 breast record twice, swimming 1:59.85 in the final to become the first Manhattan swimmer to break 2:00 in the event.
Siena: Maggie Davenport
After Siena’s former head coach left to join LSU as an assistant coach, Maggie Davenport returned to her alma mater to serve as the program’s head coach. A former team captain, Davenport guided the women’s team to an 8th-place finish at the MAAC Championships. The team was led by sophomore Hope Ivanovich, who swept the butterfly events, breaking the MAAC record in the 100 fly and her program record in the 200.
Evansville: Toby Wilcox
The Evansville women maintained their place as 7th in the Mountain Valley Conference in the first season of Toby Wilcox’s second stint with the team. He most recently coached at Birmingham Southern. With the conference bringing back men’s swimming and diving, the men transitioned from the Mid-American with many of the same teams. A year after a sixth-place finish, the Valparaiso men were able to get the better of Evansville this season and the team took 7th in the conference.
Eastern Illinois: Scott Teeters
Scott Teeters arrived at Eastern Illinois to serve as the team’s fourth head coach in four years. Both the men’s and women’s teams set nine program records at the Summit League Championships in February, with Dismas Dillion winning bronze in the 100 freestyle with a program record to earn the team’s top three finish of the championships.
Illinois State: Riley Hilbrandt
The Illinois State women earned a 7th-place finish at the 2025 MVC Championships in Riley Hilbrandt’s first year as head coach. It was a drop for the team, as they took fourth at the 2024 edition of the meet. Still, the team took down three school records; senior Mia Snow broke the 100 butterfly record twice and won silver. Many of the team’s top performances came from its seniors, leaving plenty of work for the Birds to do next season.
Iowa State: Matt Leach
After spending six seasons as the head coach of Washington State, Matt Leach was named Iowa State’s head coach. The Cyclones ended up 10th in the new-look Big XII Championships, tallying 397 points to finish only 12 behind West Virginia and their first-year head coach.
Incarnate Word: Tony Miller
After spending a season at Howard University, Tony Miller took over the helm at Incarnate Word in late August. The team turned in a successful conference championship effort; Jada Ashford went undefeated in her individual events and the men earned the top two spots in the 1650 freestyle among a flurry of top-three finishes for the program.
Promoted
Arizona State: Herbie Behm
When Bowman left Arizona State less than a week after the men’s team won its first NCAA team title in program history, the school handed the reins over to assistant Herbie Behm. This year, both the women’s and men’s teams won the Big XII team title, which marked the first conference title in history for the women’s team and the men’s third straight.
The women’s team’s historic season continued at NCAAs. They outscored projections on the first night with an All-American finish in the 200 medley relay and finished 19th, the program’s best finish since 2012. Anchored by stellar showings from Jonny Kulow and Ilya Kharun, the men’s team withstood the mass exodus and finished sixth at NCAAs, marking the first time in school history that the team placed in the top 10 for four straight seasons.
Georgia Tech: John Ames
In August, Courtney Shealy Hart resigned as the Georgia Tech head coach to “pursue a new professional opportunity outside of sports.” The school handed the program to John Ames, who served for 23 years as the head diving coach, naming him the interim head coach of the program. The athletic department removed the “interim” tag in February, a vote of confidence for the direction Ames is leading the program.
By the end of the ACC Championships, the men’s and women’s programs had combined for nine program records, with the women completely rewriting their relay records.
After not scoring at the 2024 NCAA Championships, the men earned a 25th-place finish in the overall standings. They scored 24 points, sophomore diver Max Fowler contributed 18 while the 200 medley relay of Berke Saka, Uros Zivanovic, Antonio Romero, and Leandro Odorici finished 14th.
Washington State: Russell Whitaker
After previously serving as the Cougars’ Director of Ops/Assistant coach, Russell Whitaker was tapped to guide Washington State as it transitioned from the Pac-12 to the Mountain West. It was a successful year for the team, they finished fifth at the conference championships, less than 25 points behind fourth-place Nevada.
Their biggest success came at the NCAA Championships. The team sent Dori Hathazi, Emily Lundgren, and Darcy Revitt to Federal Way, the latter of whom cracked the mid-major all-time top 10 rankings in two events this season. Lundgren broke 1:00 in the 100 breaststroke in Federal Way before placing 16th. She did even better in the 200 breaststroke, finishing 6th in a lifetime best 2:06.18. Her swim makes her the first All-American in program history and is the highest finish at NCAAs by a Cougar.
Lundgren scored 14 points at the NCAA Championships, leading Washington State to a 33rd-place finish. She was named the Mountain West Swimmer of the Year.
BYU: Tamber McAllister
Tamber McAllister was promoted to the head coach role at BYU after serving as an assistant coach from 2005-2018, then again from 2021-2024. Her assistant coaching career with the Cougars included nine All-Americans and 49 individual conference titles.
Junior MacKenzie Miller was the first BYU women’s team member to reach the NCAA Championships since 2021. She made the most of that appearance, adding two more All-America honors to McAllister’s career total with a runner-up finish in the 200 breaststroke and a seventh-place finish in the 100 breaststroke. The team placed 23rd at the NCAA Championships, the program’s best finish in 34 years.
On the men’s side, the team finished 5th at their second Big XII Championships, highlighted by four school records.
UNLV: Pat Oza
After Loorz’s departure, Pat Oza was promoted from associate head coach. UNLV swims in two different conferences, as the men race in the WAC and the women in the Mountain West.
The UNLV men won their fifth-straight WAC title this February. Then, the Rebels sent two men to the NCAA Championships, diver Alejandro Vazquez and swimmer Daniel Nicusan. Nicusan was a huge part of the team’s conference title, earning four golds and breaking conference records in the 100/200 breast. At the NCAA Championships, Nicusan’s highest finish was 17th in the 200 breaststroke, as he improved on his program and WAC record with a 1:52.27, narrowly missing a finals swim. It’s the program’s highest finish in the event at the NCAA Championships.
The women took second at the 2025 Mountain West conference championship, finishing 105 points behind San Diego State. It was the program’s third-straight runner-up finish at the championships and they broke multiple program records as Oza maintained the status quo for the women.
George Washington: Jamie Greenwood
After serving as the interim head coach for the 2023-24 season, Jamie Greenwood had the interim tag removed before the start of this season. He’d been with the program for six years and under the first year of his leadership, the Patriots won four A-10 event titles and both the men’s and women’s programs had winning dual meet records.
This year, the team continued its success. The women won the A-10 title for the fourth straight year, while the men won their fifth title in a row. Ali Tyler and Tate Anderson were highlights for the team; Tyler was named the Most Outstanding Swimmer of the Championships after sweeping her individual events and setting two A-10 records (100 free, 200 IM).
Fordham: Tom Wilkens
Fordham Swim and Dive had a successful season last year—highlighted by an NCAA Championship appearance from Ainhoa Martin despite losing their head coach right at the beginning of the season. Tom Wilkens helped steady the ship as the interim head coach and for his success, had the “interim” tag removed before the 2024-25 season.
Both teams slipped a spot in the conference standings, with the women taking fourth and the men seventh at the 2025 A-10 Championships. Combined, the programs put two on the A-10 Academic All-Conference team and eight Academic-All District.
Cleveland State: Trent Richardson
After serving as an assistant coach, Trent Richardson was promoted to head coach for the 2024-25 season. The women’s team finished third at the Horizon League Championships as two athletes earned conference titles. Grace Chelf repeated as the 50 freestyle champion, while Giovanna Cappabianca won the 200 breaststroke in school record time, picking up her third medal of the meet.
The men’s team also finished third at the championships, with Jackson Nester earning a four-peat in the 400 IM with a new school record. Paddy Johnston broke the league and school record twice en route to a title in the 200 butterfly.
Georgia Southern: Morgan McCafferty
After spending three seasons with the Vandals as an assistant, Morgan McCafferty was hired as the team’s head coach. McCafferty led the team to a third-place finish at the Sun Belt Championships in her first season as head coach. The squad rebounded after a tough opening event and got on the podium in the 800 freestyle relay, breaking the program record they swam last year. The records continued to fall throughout the competition, capped by Chiara Alberti earning a third-place finish in the 100 freestyle with a program record on the final night.
Xavier: Lindsey Niergarth
Lindsey Niergarth was promoted to head coach after MacDonald took the head coaching job at West Virginia. She’d been with the program since 2021 and in three seasons, had coached Xavier athletes to 28 Big East conference titles.
This year, the Musketeers added 12 more titles to Niegarth’s count. Both teams finished third in the standings at the 2025 Big East Championships, with Aiden Leamer named Co-Big East Most Outstanding Swimmer of the Meet. Leamer set three individual program records at the meet, earning one conference title and two runner-up finishes.
UMass: Maiya Otsuka
In Maiya Otsuka’s first year as the acting head coach of the women’s swim and dive team, the Minutewomen took seventh at the A-10 Championships, maintaining their placement from the 2024 Championships, when Otsuka was an assistant coach with the team. It was a strong outing for both the women’s and men’s teams, highlighted by Day 3 where the programs combined for 14 school records.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Reviewing First-Year DI Head Coaches’ Seasons With Their New NCAA Team
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