Cal State Bakersfield Head Coach Chris Hansen On Administrative Leave

Cal State Bakersfield head coach and Director of Swimming Chris Hansen is currently on paid administrative leave, the school confirmed to SwimSwam on Tuesday.

According to a source, Hansen has been on leave since returning from the Big West Championships in February, though the school declined to release any additional details beyond confirming it “because this is a personnel matter.”

Hansen has been the head coach at CSUB for 17 years, initially being hired in 2008 to serve as head coach of the men’s team before taking over as Director of Swimming in 2011.

This past season, the Roadrunner women’s team placed 5th out of six teams at the 2025 Big West Championships, while the men finished 5th out of five teams, with junior Vili Sivec winning conference titles in the men’s 100 and 200 fly.

Following the Big West meet, CSUB sent Sivec to the Bulldog NCAA Qualifying Meet, where he set a new school record in the 100 free in a time of 41.98, which ultimately saw him fall short of the NCAA Championship cutline by three one-hundredths of a second.

Sivec also set new school records in the 50 free (19.27), 200 free (1:33.48), 100 fly (45.61) and 200 fly (1:43.13) during the season.

In 2023-24, CSUB competed at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships, with the women placing 5th out of 10 teams and the men taking 6th out of seven teams.

In 2019-20, the team’s last season in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), Hansen coached Autumn D’Arcy to three individual conference titles, earning her WAC Swimmer of the Year honors, while Mikayla Popham won Freshman of the Year honors.

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Dan Wickensheimer
22 days ago

Chris Hansen fought to save that program multiple times in his tenor. Every record on the school record board from the previous regime has been broken by Chris’s swimmers. The swim teams are always top academic performers amount all student athletes and they are always participants in community service throughout the year. I don’t know everyone’s story with Chris but I can speak about mine and on behalf of a number of former Csub student athletes when I say Chris was an excellent coach and friend. Seems like there a lot of bitter keyboard warriors hiding behind screen names in the comments with a grudge.

Cal poly family
23 days ago

This same process led to losing an entire program at Cal Poly so just make sure your program is safe for long term.

Dr. Steven C.
23 days ago

Hansen spent 2 seasons as HC at Virginia Tech between 1996-98 and was fired a few weeks after being voted the A-10 Conference Coach of the Year. It wasn’t due to poor performance. 

In the end, everybody gets there comeuppance. This one just happened to have been an entire generation in the making. There are a lot of people who this guy hurt have been waiting a very long time for him to get his.

Dave
23 days ago

What goes around comes around

4 kick pullout
23 days ago

A long, long, long time coming. Hallelujah

Swimfan01
23 days ago

😂 lol

Swimmin in the South
23 days ago

“I’m Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC……”

PFA
Reply to  Swimmin in the South
23 days ago

I read the headline and I was so tempted to make this joke lol

Swimmin in the South
Reply to  PFA
22 days ago

It’s never not funny….until he walks through the door of the house you “accidentially” wandered into.

Owlmando
23 days ago

I heard bad things about dude from a couple swimmers on the program. Wonder if he’s caught up in the same vein or from something else

Goop
Reply to  Owlmando
23 days ago

He tried to recruit me for my 5th year at the end of 2022. By the end of the recruitment process, 10 swimmers were off the team as well as 3 coaches.

Last edited 23 days ago by Goop
4 kick pullout
Reply to  Goop
23 days ago

It seems not much has changed. Same exact thing (or worse) was going on in the early 2010s when I was around

Noname
Reply to  Goop
23 days ago

The 2 coaches moved on to better positions thanks to their commitment to the CSUB program and the other coach left for a family emergency. Know your facts before you through accusations

Anonymous
Reply to  Goop
23 days ago

So to elaborate, the 10 swimmers that were not on the team anymore either graduated or couldn’t handle swimming on a division 1 team. And the three coaches that left got an opportunity of a lifetime to move up in their careers due to the guidance of Chris Hansen.

Noname
Reply to  Anonymous
22 days ago

Exactly!

About James Sutherland

James Sutherland

James swam five years at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, specializing in the 200 free, back and IM. He finished up his collegiate swimming career in 2018, graduating with a bachelor's degree in economics. In 2019 he completed his graduate degree in sports journalism. Prior to going to Laurentian, James swam …

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