The University of Pittsburgh has announced that Gideon Louw, South African Olympian, has joined the team as the associate head coach for the men’s and women’s programs.
“We are incredibly excited to add Gideon to our staff as an associate head coach,” said head coach Chase Kreitler in the school’s release on August 27th. “It is clear that Gideon’s mentorship-based coaching approach and focus on positive relationships with student-athletes will fit right in with our coaching staff at Pitt.”
Louw spent the last six seasons as an assistant coach at Auburn University, aiding the Tigers’ rebuild. After scoring no points at 2021 NCAAs, the men’s team has finished 10th and 12th at the last two championships, while the women just notched a 19th-place finish in 2024.
Before Auburn, Louw served as an associate head coach at Minnesota and a graduate assistant at Florida State. Outside the college scene, Louw was a two-time U.S. National Team coach and served as Guatemala’s head coach at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Louw is a two-time Olympian; he made South Africa’s team in 2008 and 2012. He raced collegiately for Auburn.
Kreitler said that Louw’s “experience working with Olympians, NCAA All-Americans, SEC Champions, and Big Ten champions will make an immediate impact on the performance of our team…[he] will primarily serve as the lead coach with our sprint athletes and have a significant impact on our relays as we look to build on the momentum we’ve started the past two years.”
This is Pitt’s third coaching staff change this offseason after Roman Willets announced he was stepping away from coaching and Kelsey Reott became an assistant with the Princeton women’s team. Ford McLiney and Kaersten Meitz were named assistant coaches earlier this summer as was Zach Breeding, who joined the program last season as a volunteer assistant coach. McLiney will serve as a diving assistant coach under Katie Kasprzak, who won the 2024 ACC Diving Coach of the Year honors.
The Pitt women were 10th out of 11 teams at the 2024 ACC Championship while the men were 7th out of 11 teams. Both programs sent two individual swimmers to NCAAs; the men tied for 24th at the 2024 Division I Men’s NCAAs as diver Cameron Cash, the ACC men’s diver of the year, scored 24 points.
I thought his next role would be a HC somewhere. Will be interesting to see the dynamic of him and Chase.
I would have thought the same. But he was not #2 at Auburn. Now he’ll get that #2 experience and so presuming his trajectory continues, next one will be. I could also see him as the next associate at Cal as one more stopover.