Notre Dame has made two hires to complete their men’s swimming & diving staff heading into the 2014-2015 season: its first under new head coach Matt Tallman.
The school announced on Wednesday the hiring of Tim Lane as the program’s new assistant and Chris Swenson as the team’s director of operations. Both coaches begin immediately.
Lane, who is just the 9th full-time assistant in the 56-year history of the program, returns to the United States after spending some time as an age group coach in Australia. Specifically, he led the National Age High Performance team for the West Coast Swim Club in Perth for the last two years. Before that, he spent four seasons as a men’s and women’s assistant at Villanova from 2008-2012 – a former Big East opponent of Notre Dame.
He is a native Australian and spent two years at Newcastle University down under before swimming for two years at UNC-Wilmington.
Lane fills Tallman’s position, after Tallman was promoted to head coach following more than 13 years as the team’s top assistant. He takes the spot of the retired Tim Welsh.
In addition to Lane’s hire, Tallman was also able to add a full-time Director of Operations to his staff. Chris Swenson spent last season as the acting head coach at Saint Peters University in New Jersey, who earned their best-ever finish at the MAAC Championships (4th). Before coming to Saint Peters, he was a graduate assistant at Rowan University, and also spent some time in the corporate world as the vice president of Casco Services Inc – a multi-million dollar trucking company.
A position of this stature was expected to have a big domino effect on the college coaching ranks, especially with the number of well-known assistants who were rumored to be interested. With Swenson holding only an “acting” role at Saint Peters, and Lane coming from Australia, the cascading affect on other college programs will be relatively limited.
The two join volunteer Matt Dorsch on this staff that will lead the program into a year two of ACC swimming next season. The Fighting Irish had a successful first year, placing 6th overall. 2015 will be a bigger challenge, though, with the graduation of the team’s best swimmer Frank Dyer.
“I could not be more thrilled to have Tim and Chris join the program,” Tallman said. “They have each made an immediate impact already. The dedication, expertise, and respect they show for the sport of swimming is tremendous. The goals for the program moving forward will piggyback what Coach (Tim) Welsh and I put together, but having a complete staff, with Matt Dorsch as our volunteer again, for the first time will help us as we try to climb in national prominence.”
Great hires, looking forward to seeing the team achieve great success.