The seismic news of Bob Bowman joining the University of Texas as their new Director of Swimming and the head coach of the men’s team is still being digested by all, but we now know how things will shake out for his swimmers as we enter the most important four months of the Olympic quad.
In his introductory press conference on Tuesday, Bowman revealed that the swimmers who primarily train under him will continue to do so through the U.S. Olympic Trials, which kick off June 15 in Indianapolis.
Bowman said that he’ll remain in Tempe training his pro swimmers to start out, with ASU allowing him to remain on deck for a brief period despite him moving on.
He’ll head to the final leg of the 2024 Pro Swim Series in San Antonio with his swimmers next week (April 10-13), and then spend time in both Tempe and Austin before heading to Colorado Springs for a training camp in May.
“After that (San Antonio), I’ll be there a little bit (Tempe), here (Austin) a little bit, and then we go to Colorado for my big altitude camp which I do every May. That’ll be part of my program here,” Bowman said.
The 58-year-old then said that after altitude camp, his swimmers will spend the last three weeks prior to the Olympic Trials with him in Austin.
“It should work in the short term,” Bowman said.
Eddie Reese will remain coaching Texas’ swimmers through the Olympic Trials, and Bowman said he won’t be involved at all with them.
During the press conference, Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte said Reese wasn’t at all involved in the hiring process for his successor.
Bowman specifically referred to the swimmers who will be training under him as “my pros,” though it was confirmed that at least two of his collegiate swimmers, Leon Marchand and Hubert Kos, will follow him to Austin (at least through the Olympics).
Of course, neither swimmer, both Europeans and already qualified for Paris, will be competing at the U.S. Olympic Trials, though we’d expect swimmers such as Regan Smith and Chase Kalisz to be among the Americans sticking with Bowman.
Kos told Hungarian media that he’ll be training under Bowman through Paris.
“There is no change, I will train with Bob until the Olympics, that’s for sure,” Kos said.
“Next week there will be a competition in San Antonio, then we will go to Colorado for a high-altitude training camp – after that there may be a change compared to before, whether Bob can come back here or not, and then maybe we will continue preparing with Leon (Marchand) elsewhere. But he knows we’ll stay together, so the three of us for sure.”
Whether or not any American collegiate swimmers are joining Bowman prior to Trials, or if it will be just the pros, remains to be seen.
Yes, a naive question. The two schools and their programs are not comparable.
Just stop it with the ‘Texas more prestigious academically” baloney. Both are huge State schools with multiple different sub parts, some better at Texas, some beter at ASU.
We can all cite the logical and rational reasons for this move like the amount of money Texas is willing to invest in a program that most universities see solely as sport always in the “red” or prestige.
The truth is- it’s the horses!
Bob loves himself his horses and what better place to be than in the state with the most horses?!?! Duh!!!
Missy Franklin has just released her podcast with Regan Smith which seems to have been recorded in January, I’m 10 minutes in and Regan’s talking about moving from Stanford to ASU, she says some reasons were that she wanted to move to Arizona and she’s really excited to have her own apartment instead of living on campus. It’d be ironic if she now has to ditch the apartment, leave Arizona and move into the Texas dorms lol
You do realize how many apartment complexes there are in Austin, right?
Why would she be living in a dorm?
To be the goat, you have to better the goat, and come to Texas and fixing the ship that had begin to list the last couple of years (even if it wasn’t all due to coaching) would help him improve that in his mind
If you are born with a mindset that always requires challenges and goals to motivate you then it doesn’t matter what you accomplished you need to beat it and that’s what bowman likely believes
It’s why self made billionaires don’t just quit and live on the beach, they just set higher goals and keep going
Kos to win Paris?
I wonder how much time Bowman will spend at French Trials and at French training camp before Olympics?
For the French trials, he said he would only do a quick return trip. For French training camp, Bob Bowman must join the staff on July 13 in Vichy.
A huge part of this for anyone who has a big picture view is the stability of Texas and the SEC vs the uncertainty in college athletics as a whole. Two conferences are going to have massive TV money going to each school and everyone else is playing catch up. ASU just had to move into a new conference because their old one dissolved, and that will affect things in ways that are too hard to anticipate.
Regardless of what happens in the college swimming landscape the next few years, it’s much less likely to negatively impact Texas than ASU.
This actually blows