Courtesy: American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA)
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – Five coaches whose athletes earned numerous medals at the 2025 World Championships in Singapore have been named finalists for the prestigious ASCA George Haines Coach of the Year award. They are Bob Bowman, Todd DeSorbo, Dave Durden, Braden Holloway and Anthony Nesty.
This award is presented annually to the individual whose coaching effectiveness has contributed the most towards American swimming excellence on the World stage.
The 2025 ASCA George Haines Coach of the Year winner will be revealed on September 4 at the ASCA World Clinic Presented by Fitter & Faster at the Reno Peppermill Resort.
About the finalists:
Bob Bowman, Director of Swimming and Head Coach of the Men’s Team at the University of Texas; coach of Team USA Worlds medalists Regan Smith, Luke Hobson, Simone Manuel, Chris Guiliano, and Shaine Casas
Todd DeSorbo, Head Coach at the University of Virginia, coach of Team USA World medalists Gretchen Walsh, Alex Walsh, Kate Douglass, Anna Moesch and Claire Curzan
Dave Durden, Head Coach at the University of California Berkeley, coach of Team USA World medalists Jack Alexy, Destin Lasco and Dare Rose
Braden Holloway, Head Coach at North Carolina State University, coach of Team USA World medalists Katharine Berkoff
Anthony Nesty, Head Coach at the University of Florida, coach of Team USA World medalists Katie Ledecky and Bobby Finke
The ASCA Coach of the Year has been awarded since 1961. Last year’s ASCA Coach of the Year was Anthony Nesty. The award is named after coaching great George Haines, and has been awarded over the years to trailblazers in the profession such as Doc Counsilman, Eddie Reese, Bob Bowman, Jon Urbanchek and many others.
Usual suspects. Nominating committee must have thought about this for about 2 minutes.
Philosophically, does that indicate that there is a very small number of coaches who are consistently meeting the criteria/intention of the award moreso than the committee being somehow intellectually lazy?
Given that it’s based on contributing to American excellence on the international stage, and that they only mean “the Operation Gold meet of the year” for international stage, who would you have nominated that isn’t nominated?
Bowman is the best the others would make great assistants under his guidance at UT
None of Bob “Benedict Arnold” Bowman’s domestic male/female swimmers won an individual gold medal (LCM) in calendar year 2024 or calendar year 2025. Instead of criticizing USA Swimming for its poor performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics, focus your attention on the domestic swimmers and not the foreign swimmers. So Bob, are you going to sit on the Canadian bench or Hungarian bench at the next Olympics?
Dave Durden. Easy. His swimmer’s progression across all fronts was incredible this year. Cal is in good hands
i think mentioning bowman and ignoring marchand is ridiculous.
marchand went through the ncaa system and still is
iand marchand still holds ncaa records
The award is for American swimming on the world stage so what does Marchand have to do with that?
Is Marchand a US citizen and is he representing the USA in international swimming competition?
Given the emphasis on American swimmers on the World stage, I would think this year would be an easy call. Todd DeSorbo has Kate Douglass and Gretchen Walsh with three individual golds between them at Worlds not to mention Gretchen Walsh’s performance at Short Course Worlds since the last awards were held. Douglass was part of two world-record relays at Worlds while Walsh joined her in the women’s medley relay. Additionally, Walsh lowered her 100 fly World Record this year too. Only Nesty and Holloway coached individual American gold medalists this year besides DeSorbo, but with multiple swimmers plus the world records, I think DeSorbo should get the nod.
Kate Douglass wasn’t exactly chopped liver at the 2024 Short Course World Championships with two individual World Records and two relay World Records.
alex walsh and claire curzan also medaled at worlds and world short course.
howley, gormsen, hayes, parker,weber, king multiple gold medals at world university games
is there a place to go to see the history of who won and when (year)?
https://swimmingcoach.org/resource/resmgr/winners/COY.pdf
Thanks. What an impressive list