In a light-filled turn of the carousel, the head coaching position at Georgia Tech became vacant on Wednesday when longtime head coach Courtney Shealy Hart resigned to pursue a career opportunity outside of sports.
It’s a really interesting job. Georgia Tech has produced a number of good swimmers in the 15 years that Hart has led the program. Most of them have been international swimmers and most of them have been men.
Yet the program as a whole has never really made it into the top 15. The men finished 19th in 2019 and the women 28th in 2021. Recent successes have included Caio Pumpitusa Brazilian who finished 5th in the 200-meter breaststroke at his last NCAA championship meet in 2022. The school has become a pipeline for Brazilian swimmers. Two assistant coaches, Arislon Soares da Silva and the recently discontinued Jago Moussalem, are both Brazilians. Another Brazilian Chico Rego was also a staff member until he took over as George Washington manager this summer.
In addition, the program benefits from one of the nation’s premier swimming pools, the 1996 Olympic pool (which has been reduced from its maximum capacity), a world-class academic reputation, and, as a public school, incredibly affordable tuition for residents of a state rich in swimming talent. Tuition has been important in the past for efficient scholarship awarding; in the future, it could help keep costs down as programs move to a full-scholarship model.
A year of study at Georgia Tech costs only $12,000 for in-state students and around $33,000 for out-of-state students. By comparison, the University of Michigan, a similarly structured academic institution, charges around $18,000 for in-state students and $61,000 per year for out-of-state students.
With its academic caliber, facilities and location as one of the rare traditional campus universities in a large urban setting, the school looks like a potential swimming hotspot with the right staff and dynamics.
The question is whether Georgia Tech can find that this late in the game. Most of the big-name coaches like Mike Stephens (Stanford), Herbie Behm (Arizona State), Matt Leach (Iowa State), Blaire Bachman (Texas A&M), Caitlin Hamilton (Kentucky) or Ben Loorz (Arizona) who were ready to move to a Power 4 head coaching job have already been signed.
However, I think there are a lot of really interesting opportunities here, because this seems to be one of the best opportunities in a long time for a club coach to make the jump into college coaching.
Aside from many experienced assistants losing their jobs due to the many offseason moves, I believe there are also current college coaches who could consider this position.
I think that’s what makes this job really interesting: Atlanta is still relatively affordable compared to places like Southern California where many pro groups pop up. It is a big city that offers many opportunities for a swimmer like Nick Fink who want to work as a professional swimmer alongside their training. If the right coach comes into this program, it could be the next big breeding ground for professional training.
Atlanta Ties
Rich Murphy, assistant head coach, Tennessee – Murphy’s first foray into college coaching at the University of Houston didn’t produce great results, but his seven seasons at Tennessee were a completely different story. The structure of the Tennessee program gives Murphy a lot of leeway within the men’s program, and that men’s program has had a lot of sprint success with guys like Jordan Crooks And Hotel Caribbean. Murphy made his name with the Dynamo Swim Club in Atlanta over nearly a decade, so he has a big local connection there. He also spent time as a volunteer under Bob Bowman at Michigan — a recommendation from the coach who led Arizona State’s men to the NCAA title last season wouldn’t hurt, either.
Michael Norment, Assistant Head Coach, Georgia – Normant has bulldog blood in his veins: The former University of Georgia swimmer returned there last season as associate head coach. In between, however, he spent time at Georgia Tech, where the men’s program won four consecutive NCAA championships after failing to win the two championships before his hiring. He also coached Nick Finkthe best American breaststroke swimmer of the last 4-5 years, for a while while Fink was there getting his master’s degree. A return from the return seems logical.
Nathan Lavery, Head Coach, Drexel – That’s very plausible. The former Texas A&M swimmer has held several assistant coaching jobs around the country, but recently settled into a four-year stint as head coach at Drexel in Philadelphia. Georgia Tech, a school with a strong academic profile in an urban setting, will be comfortable with him, not least because he spent the 2017-2018 season there as an assistant coach before moving to TCU. The Drexel women finished 6th and the men 4th at last year’s CAA championships, so they’re not a true mid-major superpower, but Lavery is developing a strong reputation on the national level.
They may be available
Arilson Soares Da Silva, Assistant Coach, Georgia Tech – He hasn’t been at Georgia Tech long, but coached four swimmers to the NCAA championship last season. He has a lot of international experience as a coach with athletes such as Andriy Govorov And Bruno FratusIf he has a good relationship with the administration, this could be a good solution for a “one-year interim solution. If everything goes well, you can have the job. If not, we have the whole offseason to look around.”
Mitch Dalton, Assistant Head Coach, University of Texas – I’m projecting a little here, but the situation in Texas, with Bob Bowman as the head coach of the women’s team, Carol Capitanicould be a situation that leaves Dalton uncertain about his future with the Longhorns and how the program might be structured in the future.
Wyatt Collins, “Special Assistant”, University of Texas – Texas currently lists Collins as a “special assistant,” but there is no indication he will stay with the Longhorns as a full-time coach in the future. Many people have said Collins would quit coaching if he didn’t get the job at Texas, and it seems like he had the opportunity somewhere if he wanted to be a head coach. But now that the Olympics are behind him, maybe he’ll get the urge and take this last-minute opportunity.
Joao de Lucca, assistant coach, Notre Dame – The former Louisville swimmer and NCAA champion in the 200-meter freestyle, who built the Cardinals’ run into a consistent top-10 college program, has quickly developed a reputation as a Paralympic-ready coach. He was hired last season by another ACC school, Notre Dame, and after recent news about Notre Dame, there are a few assistants from that program (many, like Trevor Carroll(also with ties to Louisville) who could be a good fit. To be clear, the investigations found that the gambling problems at Notre Dame had nothing to do with the coaches and that they were completely unaware of them, which basically absolves them. That shouldn’t be too much of a red flag for any of these coaches going forward. He’s also Brazilian. But maybe he’s a little lacking in experience.
Josh White, High Performance Manager, Fitter & Faster Swim Tours – Okay, the Fitter & Faster appearance is real, a good one and an opportunity to influence tonne of national-level swimmers. But White built his personal brand as a distance coach at the University of Michigan, working with swimmers like Connor Jaeger And Sean Ryan. It felt like he was a hot name for a moment and missed his chance at a big head coaching job before things got weird at Michigan at the end of the Mike Bottom era. Still, White has a good resume and, if he wants to return to college coaching, would be a big name for Georgia Tech.
The women!
Hart has long been a trailblazer for women to be Power 4 head coaches of a mixed-gender program, and while women are getting more and more opportunities, it’s still not insignificant. Here are some of the top names for women if the school decides to continue that tradition.
Ashley Jahn OR Sarah Collins, Assistant Head Coach, Tennessee – Ashley Jahn has been with Tennessee’s women’s program for 12 years, the last six as associate head coach, so she’s seen all the success and SEC titles and All-America honors (437!) and Olympians the Volunteers have produced in that time. Collins, on the other hand, has been a volunteer assistant for one season and full-time for the last two. She’s also spent time with the Cal women at the height of that program and at Pitt, Kentucky and Illinois State. While there are no obvious ties to Georgia or Atlanta, Tennessee and Georgia Tech are essentially in the same geographic recruiting area, and both coaches have plenty of experience.
Kate Moore, Assistant Coach, Duke – Moore was an assistant coach last season at Duke, another ACC program that had a great first season under new head coach Brian Barnes. Before that, she had stints at Washington State, where the school had its first Pac-12 champion in program history, and East Carolina. Her swimmers rave about her coaching tenure. It seems like the right time to put her name in those conversations, and the ACC connection gives her an advantage here. She’s been successful everywhere she’s been and has a great reputation.
Kristen Murslack, assistant coach, Florida – The former Auburn swimmer spent four seasons at Florida, one of the top programs in the country, working primarily with the women’s team. The Gators’ swimmers have won the last two SEC team titles. Before that, she spent time at Pitt working with the middle-distance swimmers. It may feel a year or two too soon for her to take over a Power 4 program, but she’s on the right track and another coach with regional and ACC connections.
listen to me
Ron Aitken, Head Coach, Sandpipers of Nevada – I think it’s no secret that Aitken, one of the most successful club coaches in the country, wants to be a college coach at some point. He has also expressed a desire to build a professional group at the same time. A strong college program in a major metropolis (that is really affordable compared to, say, Southern California, where many professional groups are being built) seems like a way to make both possible.
