Bob Bowman Leads USA Swimming Coaching Staff for 2026 Pan Pacs

USA Swimming has officially announced the coaching staff for the 2026 Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, California.

This is the 2nd year that USA Swimming is using the new coaching structure which features just one head coach to lead the men’s and women’s teams, and Bob Bowman, the Director of Swimming and Diving at the University of Texas, was named.

This is not Bowman’s first time serving in a head coaching role on the USA Swimming staff, though this will be his first time at the helm of women’s team as well. In 2016, he was the men’s head coach for the United States Olympic Team, and in 2014, he was the head men’s coach at the Pan Pacific Championships. He also served as the head men’s coach at the 2007, 2009, and 2013 World Championships.

Bowman will be making his return to the USA Swimming coaching staff after he served as an assistant coach for the French team at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Since Pan Pacs and Euros will run simultaneously, Bowman will not be able to attend the European Championships with two of his top athletes Leon Marchand and Hubert Kos.

He is the primary coach of a number of athletes at Pan Pacs including Americans Regan Smith and Shaine Casas and Canadian Summer McIntosh.

Bowman will be joined by eight other coaches including his University of Texas coworker, Carol Capitani.

• Carol Capitani (Women’s Swimming & Diving Head Coach, University of Texas)
• Todd DeSorbo (Men’s and Women’s Swimming & Diving Head Coach, University of Virginia)
• Dave Durden (Director of Swimming & Diving/Head Coach, University of California, Berkeley)
• Chris Lindauer (Director of Women’s Swimming & Diving, Stanford University)
• Ray Looze (Men’s and Women’s Swimming Head Coach, Indiana University)
• Whitney Hite (Men’s and Women’s Swimming Sr. Associate Head Coach, University of Florida)
• Mohammad Khadembashi (Executive Director and Head Coach, TSM Aquatics)
• Stefani Wendelschaefer (Assistant Swimming Coach, North Carolina State University)

Only Indiana’s Ray Looze returns from last year’s World Championships coaching staff, though Texas, Virginia, Cal, Florida, and NC State all had one coach on staff last year and a different coach on staff this year.

Looze has had a huge year with Indiana, and has led breaststroker Van Mathias to massive performances in the 50 and 100 breast events including a new American Record in the men’s 50 breaststroke.

ASU will not have any coaches at the meet, though they only have one consistent athlete on the roster in Patrick Sammon. There are other athletes that have spent time training in Tempe over the last few years, like Regan Smith and Simone Manuel, but they spend most of their time at Texas under Bowman.

It is also interesting to note that Mohammad Khadembashi, from TSM Aquatics, is the only club coach on this year’s roster. Last year, there were two club coaches with Ron Aitken from Sandpipers and Jim Nickell from Bend Swim Club. TSM only has one swimmer on the roster in Open Water athlete Ivan Puskovitch.

American Pan Pacs Athletes and Training Locations

Note: This is, to the best of our knowledge, which athletes are primarily training with which programs. That does not mean that each named athlete is necessarily training under that coach.

With Texas, since there are two coaches from the program, we split the group into men/pros and women for Bowman and Capitani.

*Jack Aikins recently moved to train at the University of Texas within the last month. He qualified for the team under DeSorbo at Virginia and currently trains with Bowman at Texas so he is listed in both groups.

^Both Shackell siblings reportedly train in a “hybrid schedule” with their club team Carmel Swim Club.