George Washington University head coach Brian Thomas has left the program, according to sources on Monday. The program had been battling to keep its on-campus pool.
Thomas was hired as head coach of GWU in the summer 2018 after spending two years leading the St. Bonaventure women. Since arriving at George Washington, Thomas has led the men to be Atlantic-10 conference champions in five out of his six seasons with the team. The women’s team has won in four out of six seasons, including the last three years. Thomas has also won A-10 coach of the year honors in the last three seasons.
Not only has Thomas led the program to success at the conference level but the program has also sent swimmers to NCAAs in recent years. This past season, the program sent both men and women to the 2024 NCAA Championships. This marked the first time that George Washington had swimmers at both the men’s and women’s NCAA Championships in the same year as well as the most swimmers (three) the school has ever had make the Championships in the same season.
Two out of the three NCAA qualifiers might return this upcoming season as Ava DeAngelis returns for her senior season and Ava Topolewski will enter her junior season. Both swimmers are in the transfer portal. It is important to note that both swimmers are entered in the transfer portal. Djurdje Matic just finished his redshirt senior season.
In February, the school announced that it would fill the on-campus pool that the team practiced in to add a practice facility for the men’s and women’s basketball programs. This would have made the swimming and diving programs move off-campus. A petition to save the pool began in March by junior Julia Knox and received more than 3,000 signatures.
At the end of April, the school announced that it would not go through with construction plans for the foreseeable future as it was found the renovations would have caused structural issues to the building. This means that the team will continue to be able to practice on-campus at the Smith Center pool that is an eight-lane, 25-yard facility.
You are always walking on eggshells around Brian. You don’t know what version of him you will get. He can be “great leader” Brian or he can be “this team is shit” Brian depending on the day. He leans more towards angry and pessimistic than happy and positive. I know GW didn’t provide an atmosphere where he felt supported… in turn he showed that to us. GW bears the onus of an administration that failed its coaches and athletes.
Of course he’s going to leave after the bull crap GW pulled this year. Don’t tell GW athlete/students that you NOW have decided the project wouldn’t be fiscally reasonable and would require the Smith Center to be offline. Lying to… Read more »
I wonder where these comments were when he was winning back- back-back- back titles?
Sounds like they were being made to admin.
This couldn’t have been better news. Not only has GW cancelled filling in the pool, but the worst leader I have ever encountered in my life is now leaving too.
As others have said, Brian’s strengths are in recruiting. He is extremely good at it. So much so that he will lie on recruiting trips about what is possible at GW – one example is when he told recruits that we regularly do lactic acid testing (no we don’t).
Beyond this, Brian is honestly the worst leader I have ever encountered. He fostered a hostile and divisive environment between athletes (especially during Covid), fueled gossip amongst the athletes, and threatened athlete’s scholarships because he could. He regularly gaslit… Read more »
Yikes!
That bus ride day, post-ride lecture story is insane! And then he talked for a whole hour! Clearly this man should not only be fired, but tarred and feathered in the town square. The gall.
He’s a Mountaineer
I’m guessing that this has been coming for a while but he was waiting for the right time. He’s a great coach and definitely knows what he’s doing. He should have a lot of success at a program that actually has resources to attract faster swimmers since he’s good a recruiting people.
This is a definite win-win scenario. Brian’s strengths lie in his ability to recruit and write water workouts, making him the ideal candidate for any power 5 associate head coach position. He inherited a winning men’s program and runner-up women’s program from his predecessor and built upon that foundation. As his tenure continued, however, it became clear that not only was Brian not equipped to be at the helm of a division one program due to his inability to communicate, manage staff, cooperate with administration, budget, maintain relationships with alumni, or support the development of young adults outside the water (in essence anything other than recruit or coach in the water), he was particularly ill-equipped to lead at GW. Brian… Read more »
“It is about the swimmer not the coach” is an interesting statement. I don’t totally disagree, but there’s not much nuance there. What does it mean to you?
Not OP but a coach
It means we do things for the benefit of the swimmers when it isn’t good for us
Be kind when you’re having a bad day
Have a meeting with a swimmer when you’ve been at the pool for 12 hours because it’s important to them
Listen to them
Let them know you care
Act in their individual best interests as much as you can
At the end of the day nobody should care about me but I hope they see how hard my swimmers work even the least talented ones, and how little recognition most of them get
The team becomes a coach’s extended family. I don’t know how Brian treated his family or if he had one, but when one takes on the responsibility of head coach, that coach needs to foster the love of the sport through the love that teammates and coaches have for each other.
The best teams have that environment.
He beat Pitt with GW 🤔 I know a school that would love doing that too
Good Riddance.