Auburn Tigers Add Ozzie Quevedo as new Assistant Coach

Head coach Brett Hawke confirmed Monday that the Auburn Tigers have announced Oswaldo “Ozzie” Quevedo as the newest addition to the team’s coaching staff.

Quevedo, who is originally from Venezuela, represented the country’s national team from 1987-2004.  During this span, he represented Venezuela numerous times on an international scale, including multiple butterfly titles at the South American Championships in 2000 and 2002. He also qualified for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where he finished 39th in the prelims of the 100 meter butterfly. He has also notched 2 Pan American Games medals during his career.

“I’m very excited and grateful for this new challenge,” Quevedo said. “Returning to Auburn means going back home to a place with tradition and history, War Eagle!”

Ozzie was also a former Tiger himself.  He represented Auburn collegiately in the late 1990’s, and was a member of the 1999 championship team that claimed Auburn’s second ever team title (the first was in 1997). Notably, the 1999 team also featured head coach Brett Hawke, who captured four titles at the meet himself. In 2000, Quevedo swam the third leg of the 200 freestyle relay that set the US Open and NCAA records, both of which stood for 4 years before a Fred Bousquet-led Auburn team re-broke the record.

Before his addition to the Tigers’ coaching staff, Quevedo had coached both on the club and high-school levels. He was the head coach of National Training Center Aquatics, which is based in Clermont, FL. While coaching for NTCA, Quevedo developed multiple Senior/Junior National qualifiers and also produced numerous swimmers who were ranked nationally in Age Group Swimming. Quevedo also coached for Montverde Academy, which is a coeducational college preparatory school that has fielded a swim team since 2011. Quevedo coached both the men’s and women’s varsity programs.

Coach Hawke’s decision to add Quevedo to his staff continues the Tigers’ tradition of bringing back alums to contribute to the team as mentors. In fact, aside from diving, Auburn’s entire coaching staff for the swim team is composed of former Tigers, as coaches Hawke, Hargis, Christianson, McGill, Karkoska, and Quevedo all attended Auburn in the period between 1994-2004. Ozzie will look to contribute to both the men’s and women’s programs, who finished 8th and 13th respectively at last year’s NCAA Championships. Hawke’s three hires this year, Hargis, McGill, and Quevedo, were all Olympians as well.

The Tigers begin their 2013-14 season on September 27th against Vanderbilt (women’s team only), and the men will join the women for the Notre Dame Tri-Meet between October 11th and October 12th.