As diving coaches across the country fear for the future of their programs, John Ames—who spent 23 years as the head diving coach for Georgia Tech—has gained another measure of control over the program. Since August, Ames has served as the Yellowjackets’ interim swimming and diving head coach. On Monday, Feb. 24, the school announced it would remove the interim tag, making Ames the permanent Toni M. And Richard L. Bergmark swimming and diving head coach.
Ames first took over the swimming and diving programs last summer when Courtney Shealy Hart resigned after 15 seasons with the Yellowjackets to “pursue a new professional opportunity outside of sports.”
Ames has coached for the last 32 years. Before arriving at Georgia Tech, he coached at George Washington and Western Illinois. He’s also served as associate head coach at the Montgomery Dive Club and head coach at the Atlanta Diving Associate. He has an extensive career, though this marks his first season having swimmers under his stewardship.
During Ames’ 23 years as the Georgia Tech’s diving head coach, that arm of the program soared to new heights. The top ten scores in all three diving events have been earned since his arrival in 2001. He has also coached multiple divers to the NCAA Championships, including Cami Hidalgo, who earned bronze on the 3-meter board in 2021. Her effort is the best NCAA finish by a Georgia Tech woman in program history.
It’s unusual to see a diving coach at the head of a collegiate swimming and diving program. And while the Yellowjackets season is not yet over, the team has already achieved success this season. Some of that success has been on the boards; Max Fowler won the men’s 3-meter title at the recently concluded ACC Championships and was the team’s only conference champion. But, they’ve also been seeing results in the pool. Berke Saka won silver in the 200 IM at ACCs. Together, swimmers and divers helped the men’s team place 9th in the new-look conference, earning a top-10 finish even as high-powered Cal and Stanford teams made their conference championship debut.
Between the men’s and women’s programs, the team has set nine program records so far this season. The women’s team has almost completely rewritten their relay records, setting new school bests in all but the 800 freestyle relay.
“We’re thrilled to elevate John Ames to our permanent Toni M. And Richard L. Bergmark swimming and diving head coach,” said J Batt, the school’s director of athletics in Georgia Tech’s press release. “John has done an outstanding job throughout his 24 years at Tech, first as the most successful diving coach in program history, then in leading our men’s team to a top-25 ranking as interim head coach this season. Our swimming and diving program is in good hands with him at the helm.”
Next, Georgia Tech turns its attention to the NCAA Championships in March. At the men’s meet, the Yellowjackets aim to turn that top-25 ranking in the CSCAA polls into a top-25 finish.
I mean, it’s one way to save money – have one Head Coach for swimming AND diving 🙂
When I was a student-athlete, I never once interacted with the dive coach. When we had weekends with just swim recruits, he wasn’t even around at the dinners or events. Aside from parties, the divers did their own separate thing. This is so odd.
GTech is going the Miami route, apparently.
Except (a) Miami has women swimmers and women’s head coach who is a swim coach; and (b) GT still has men and women swimmers . . . otherwise it’s exactly like Miami.
Super interesting hire. If you have faith in the assistant coaches leading the swim training and season planning then it should work.
Curious how recruits would view this
Was he ever a swimmer himself? On the surface from the outside this seems very odd.
Maybe this is swimming’s version of Ted Lasso?