Jeff Thompson will resign his position as aquatics director and swim coach with the famed Germantown Academy swimming program in June 2025 to become the head coach of the Southeastern Swim Club in Fishers, Indiana.
An unusual club announcement almost 10 months out from the change, the decision gives Germantown time to search for and hire Thompson’s replacement in what should be one of the more high-profile club/high school hirings in the last few years.
Thompson came to Germantown in fall 2015, taking over for the legendary Dick Shoulberg, who left in 2015 after being investigated by the school for alleged abuse, suspended, and eventually reinstated to the job.
Thompson’s tenure leading the program has been lived in Shoulberg’s shadow, with a vocal group of alumni being unwilling to accept the replacement for the man who, at the time, was the only head coach in the 43-year-old history of the program.
The prestigious prep school located in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia produced eight Olympians during Shoulberg’s tenure and at one point placed a swimmer on the US National Team for 12 straight years.
Among the most-famous names to come out of the program are the Crippen family of Olympians and NCAA Champions (Maddy, Claire, Theresa, and Fran); 1988 Seoul Olympic silver medalist Dave Wharton; and University of Virginia associate head coach Tyler Fenwick.
While there was an initial dropoff in the team’s performance after Thompson’s hiring amid a number of transfers, the program has had more success in recent seasons. Both the boys’ and girls’ teams are the three-time defending Interact champions, with neither team having lost a dual meet in three seasons. One of the program’s top swimmers, Landon D’Ariano, is committed to swim at the University of Texas this fall, while others are committed to or already attending high profile programs like Indiana, Penn, Auburn, Georgia, Harvard, and SMU.
The position at the Southeastern Swim Club came open Christian Hanselmann left to join the staff at BYU and when Dorsey Tierney-Walker left to take over at Tide Swimming in Virginia from Jack Roach as part of what has been an unusually-high profile offseason on the club coaching carousel.
In the meantime, Rich Wolfred will lead the Southeastern Swim Club, coming out of retirement for a season to fill the gap. Wolfred spent 19 years coaching at Lawrence and 16 years coaching at Noblesville, where he built powerhouse programs.
The role is not necessarily, but often does, overlap with the head coaching position at Hamilton Southeastern High School. The girls’ team at Hamilton Southeastern finished 6th at last year’s Indiana State Championship meet while the boys finished 10th.
I’m sure Southeastern is excited to have Jeff joining the program!
To clear up one small inaccuracy, while Dorsey has left for Tide, Christian Hanselmann was the previous head coach and has headed west to take a job on the BYU staff.
Both will be missed, but SSC should be excited to have some great coaches coming in to work with a great group of kids and parents!
Thanks for the note about Christian.