USA Swimming has confirmed the addition of Chris Plumb as an assistant coach for the national staff at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships. Plumb is the head coach of Carmel Swim Club and Carmel High School, the dominant high school program in the state of Indiana.
Plumb takes the spot of Greg Meehan, who earlier this week confirmed that he was withdrawing from the meet to focus on his athletes at Stanford, where he is currently coaching without an assistant.
Carmel put two athletes on the World Championship team: Alex Shackell is qualified to swim in the women’s 800 free relay and Drew Kibler is qualified to swim in the men’s 800 free relay. Shackell is a rising high school junior while Kibler returned to his home training base last year after completing his college career at Texas.
Normally, the US coaching staff focuses on coaches with athletes in individual events, though most programs with multiple individual qualifiers are already represented on the staff (with the notable exception of Cal, where it is presumed that head coach Dave Durden declined a spot).
Durden says he’ll join the team in camp in Singapore for the first 8-9 days, but come home when the team travels to Fukuoka – handing his athletes off to David Marsh, who will be at the meet as part of the Isareli staff.
Plumb previously served as the head coach for the US at the 2016 Junior Pan Pacific Championships and as the assistant women’s coach at the 2017 FINA World Junior Championships. He also served as the Head Women’s Coach for a USA Swimming National Junior Team Camp.
This appears to be his first major appointment to a senior staff.
The pool swimming coaching staff, which is not explicitly split by gender of athletes they’ll work with, is led by Bob Bowman and Carol Capitani. Other assistants include Blaire Anderson from Virginia, Braden Holloway from NC State, Ray Looze from Indiana, Anthony Nesty from Florida, and Eddie Reese from Texas.
Open water coaches include Ron Aitken from Sandpipers of Nevada as head coach and Cory Chitwood from Indiana as assistant coach. Aitken and Plumb both being club coaches on the US staff is a significant shift from recent years, where senior US staffs have been dominated by college coaches.
Plumb declined to respond to a request for comment on his appointment.
Well deserved! Team USA is going to benefit tremendously.
What’s a “Schoo”? 🤣
Congratulations Chris Plumb! I’m thrilled to see one of the most dedicated and knowledgeable coaches in the country get this well deserved opportunity. I’m certain that the experience and knowledge gained will be put to good use at Carmel where he consistently produces swimmers who earn spots on junior and senior level national teams.
Congrats Chris! Carmel has always been good, but they have become “next level” better under Coach Plumb! Huge success and well deserved!
Well-deserved, love to see club coaches get national recognition, congrats Chris!
Finally!
https://youtu.be/JMOBxjIvLBE
Chris has been doing an amazing job at Carmel for years and should have had a spot long before this. Good to see the club coaches, who make it all happen getting shots.
Well deserved. About time Club coaches who are getting sh** done on the national and international levels of the sport get appointments such as this. Hope to see more club coaches in coming years follow Chris and Ron to national team positions. #FTT