Two-time All-American swimmer Carlye Ellis has been named the new women’s swimming assistant coach at Navy. She replaces associate head coach Rob Lias, who left the program without announcement in January after more than 16 seasons.
“I have known Carlye as both a decorated swimmer and a rising star in the coaching profession,” said head coach John Morrison. “She is passionate about swimming and mentoring personal growth through the sport. Every program Carlye has touched has realized success. She has competed, recruited and coached at the highest levels. I am thrilled to add Carlye to our staff. She is one of the best coaches in the country and will be a leader in the continued success of our program in and out of the pool.”
Ellis comes to the program from Duke, where she spent the last two seasons as the lead assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the women’s team, as well as director of operations. At Duke, she worked mostly with the middle distance and distance swimmers across all strokes and disciplines.
The future of Duke’s coaching staff is up-in-the-air. Former head coach Dan Colella, who was the head coach at Duke for 16 years, died in December; Doak Finch finished the season as interim head coach but has not been announced with the full title yet.
The Blue Devils saw their women’s team place 24th at the 2022 NCAA Championship and 21st at this year’s national championship. Highlighting the 2023 season’s efforts was having a pair of women’s swimmers earn First-Team All-America honors — the first time the women’s team had multiple First-Team All-Americans in a single season — as the team posted its highest finish at the meet in over a decade.
Ellis, a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, graduated from Pioneer High School in 2007. As a senior, she was the Michigan High School State Champion in the 200 IM (2:04.76) and 100 breaststroke (1:04.05) individually.
From there, she went to the University of Texas, where she swam on Big 12 Championship winning 200 and 400 medley relay teams in 2009 and earned Honorable Mention All-America honors at the NCAA Championships.
Ellis graduated from Texas in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in corporate communications. She would go on to earn master’s degrees from both Valparaiso (2015, sport administration) and Ohio (2021, organizational communications).
Ellis began her coaching career as a graduate assistant at Valparaiso in the fall of 2013 where she was the lone assistant coach for both the men’s and women’s teams. After two seasons, she became an assistant coach for the women’s team at Cornell in the spring of 2015. Ellis stayed three years in New York State before becoming an assistant coach for the women’s team at Ohio in the summer of 2018. In addition to her coaching duties with the Bobcats, she also served as the recruiting coordinator and the director of operations for the team.
She then joined the Duke staff in the summer of 2021.
The Navy women dominated the 2023 Patriot League Championships, scoring 799 points to finish well ahead of Army (615.5). That counts as the Navy women’s 11th-straight league title and 21st in 31 seasons in the Patriot League. Those are the most championships won by any team in the Patriot League in any sport.
If Ellis continues to focus on middle-distance and distance swimmers at Navy, that will give her direct supervision of some of the program’s top recruits this fall, including Samantha Clifford (1:48.64/4:55.40 freestyles), Erin Miller (1:49.25/4:55.74 freestyles), and Marin Rose (4:54.15/10:03/17:14 freestyler).
Great hire!
Coach Rob seemed to be a good fit for that program. Wonder what happened.
He was pretty open on recruiting calls about dealing with some things related to his health/an injury. Wishing him well in his next chapter.
16 years and no explanation for leaving one month out of championships? Yikes
Go Carlye!!! Navy got a good one!