Florida State University swimming and diving has terminated their contract with their Head Coach, Frank Bradley, who had one year left in his contract with the Seminoles. After taking the job in 2013, Bradley has been the Head Coach of both the men’s and women’s team for the last 3 NCAA seasons.
Over the last 2 seasons, FSU has gone from a top 3 team in the ACC to sitting just inside the top 10. The women earned their highest rankings of the past 5 years with their 3rd place finishes at the ACC Championships in 2012 and 2014. In 2014-15, they fell to 7th before moving down to 9th at ACCs in the 2015-16 season. At the NCAA championships, they improved on their 30th place finish from 2014 with 24th overall in 2015. However, they were unable to place at the 2016 NCAA Championships, having no scoring swimmers or divers.
This season, the women were without NCAA All-American Chelsea Britt, who was a finalist at the 2015 NCAA Championships in both butterfly events. Britt took a red-shirt this year before announcing her intention to transfer out of the ACC. Along with Britt, Gracie Redding and Daniella van den Berg have also made the decision to transfer. Both Redding and van den Berg will make the move to FGCU.
The men’s team has followed a similar pattern, placing 6th at 2015 ACCs and 9th at the 2016 meet. They were consistently in the top 5 in the 3 years prior to that, earning 3rd place at ACCs in 2014. At NCAAs in 2014, they swam to 14th overall. Most recently, they tied with Hawaii for 31st at the 2016 NCAA Championships. Their only swimmer at that meet was Jason Coombs, who announced his retirement following his junior season.
Florida State confirmed the coaching change in a statement to SwimSwam Wednesday morning:
Florida State Director of Athletics Stan Wilcox confirmed today that Frank Bradley will not return for a fourth season as the Seminoles’ Head Swimming Coach in 2016-17.
FSU finished ninth in the ACC in both men’s and women’s swimming and diving this past season. The men’s team went on to finish 31st at the NCAA Championships, while the women’s team did not score at the NCAA meet.
University policy on personnel decisions prevents further comment on the coaching change.
The Athletics Department will move forward immediately with a national search to fill the position of Head Swimming Coach.
I finally got it , understand what Frank was about. He pushed me beyond what was mentally possible and made cornerstone impact on my life. Awaking from my hibernation from the swimming world . Look out!
Former Frank Indian River swimmer here. Every now and then I try to look up where Frank is, because of the impact he made on my life. I was a decent swimmer in high school and was pretty damn green and soft at 18 going to Indian River, it was a punch in the mouth going to swim for him for sure. It was survival every day under him, it was sink or swim and many didn’t make it through the program. I did and it forever changed my outlook on hard work and life. I graduated from IRSC and went to TCU after. An opportunity I would have never had without college swimming. It was a conscious decision to… Read more »
Any idea what has happened to Frank? He seems to have drifted off the swimming life….
Frank was a very talented swimmer himself didn’t always have to put in the hard work but I can see where he could be a hard ass coach; wish him the best for the future
Most unprofessional coach I encountered in the recruiting process; FSU was NOT well represented by Bradley and has done well to move on.
Frank had plenty of success especially at the River. Major time drops from plenty of raw talents and developed many team leaders. Every swimmer who got recruited by Frank and saw his results was excited. The issue is his style of motivation and the negative reinforcement he brought to people’s lives. It’s unacceptable, why shouldn’t he be held accountable for acting inappropriate in the work place. You can’t talk to people like that regardless of results just because your a swim coach. It can have great success and I’m all for disciplined training but get real. Talk to anybody in the real world how Frank spoke to his swimmers and you’ll end up on your back real quick.
Least I got chicken.
Neal Studd or Sid Cassidy would be outstanding choices. Getting Bernardino would be a major coup and a step in the right direction Not sure Sid would ever want to get back into college swimming but he is outstanding. Coach Bernardino is in the thick of training two potential Olympic medal winners. Neal is the best available candidate. His team has eaten FSU’s lunch and will continue to do so, regardless of the obvious disadvantage he has with facilities/school exposure etc. They would be crazy not to court him…
The head coach from North Dakota should be looked at.