Former Dartmouth head coach Jesse Moore will be named the next assistant women’s swimming coach at Cal. He will replace Dani Korman, who has served in that role since the 2019-2020 season. Sources tell SwimSwam that Moore signed his contract at Cal on Tuesday.
SwimSwam has reached out to Korman to inquire about her next move, but have not received a response.
The Cal women placed 8th at the 2022 NCAA Championship meet, which was their lowest finish since 2005. While a lot of swimmers are still getting faster upon arrival in Berkeley, Cal’s recruiting hasn’t been at the level it once was in recent seasons. The addition of NCAA Champion and Olympic gold medalist Maggie MacNeil as a 5th-year transfer from Michigan next season will help with that, and if Izzy Ivey returns for her 5th year next season, that would give Cal one of the best one-two punches in the country. Cal is lead by head coach Teri McKeever, who among other accomplishments led the U.S. women’s team to the 2012 Olympic Games.
In the 2021-2022 season, Moore’s only as head coach at Dartmouth, the Big Green finished 8th out of 8 teams in the men’s meet and 7th out of 8 teams in the women’s meet, the same as they finished in the prior championship in 2020.
Moore took over the Dartmouth program as head coach in April 2021. The team was coming out of the COVID-19 season where not only did the Ivy League cancel all competition, but the school cut, and then reinstated, the swimming & diving programs.
Moore spent the prior three seasons at Minnesota, where he oversaw the middle distance and IM groups, coordinated recruiting, and managed rosters for both the men’s and women’s programs. While at Minnesota, Moore coached 33 NCAA qualifiers and helped both the men’s and women’s team earn top 20 finishes at the 2019 NCAA Championships.
Before coming to Minnesota, Moore served as the associate head coach at Northwestern University, where he coached all training groups, led recruiting efforts, managed social media accounts, and coordinated team travel. During his time there, the team thrived in both the pool and the classroom, making it to NCAAs in both 2017 and 2018 and earning multiple CSCAA All-America and Big Ten individual honors.
Prior to Northwestern, Moore also worked as an assistant coach at Duke (2012-16), and at his alma mater William & Mary (2010-12), where he earned his MBA while working as an assistant coach.
Moore launched his coaching career in 2008, working as a graduate assistant academic advisor at Drexel for two years. In this role, he advised students from several different athletic teams and worked as a volunteer assistant coach with the swimming and diving teams.
I mean seriously, have you ever been to Dartmouth in the winter? Flown in a small plane in a blizzard to get to Hanover? The only way to survive up there is to drink your ass off. FFS, he has a chance to leave that ice-hole and move to California. That alone says he passes the IQ test.
Love that the team had to hear about this from this article along with everyone else…
That’s on the school and the coaches.
If they didn’t know about this by the time this article went up, then they were the only people in the country who didn’t.
It’s the coaches responsibility to communicate with their athletes. Don’t blame the media.
Coming from someone who is supposed to be excited about joining his now “old” team. He did not go about his leave professionally there was no closure and no notice to any of his recruits or current team that he was leaving no text or email from him. The opportunity is great a big power five school and theres no arguing with the deal. At the very least have the decency to tell the team that you are leaving and make it from you don’t have assistants tie up your loose ends, do it professionally.
Sometimes administrations do not let an outgoing coach connect with their team. They set up the conversations or ask assistants to.
Seen that the past 4 years in different sports.
“… the kids will always grow up.” He did what was right for his career, and I wish him well. My kid is a sophomore in high school, and researching Dartmouth led us to research Coach Moore. We were both so impressed and excited about the prospect of him as a coach for my swimmer. Hoping hard that Dartmouth adds or promotes the right leadership for what the program needs right now.
Someones seen that podcast……
Minnesota is my second favorite state, while California is my third! So this is a great decision!!
don’t do this to us. What’s the first?
Bet it’s Michigan, it’s the water-winter wonderland
I’ll never tell, until you guess Indiana!! Which is definitely my favorite
I can’t believe Dani Korman didn’t work out for Cal.
Agreed. She is a phenomenal coach and young woman.
6 schools in 10 years is a massive red flag from a compliance standpoint, and he clearly didn’t want to engage and connect with the Dartmouth community, alumni, recruits, etc. I’m not sure this will end well for Cal.
Yeah, not when they cut the program on him
He was hired at Dartmouth after that program has been reinstated.
Wouldn’t he have been better off to wait out the situation at UCLA if he wanted to live in California?
Pray tell
What’s the situation at UCLA?
Team is revolting and coaching staff is under investigation
team is revolting?
According to whom? Staff at UCLA is still dealing with swimmers recruited by the previous coaches. Swimmers who likely thought they would just be taking a bath in Westwood for 4 years as opposed to actually training to improve. UCLA has some much better swimmers starting in the fall…seems strange all this hate.
Maybe Swim Swam should investigate-they did with USC.
We have chatted with a few UCLA swimmers on this topic, and so far nobody has really been able to come up with much evidence or even specific accusations or examples.
My inbox is always open, though, if any UCLA swimmers want to discuss.
Uhhh, we do not want him. The last thing the Bruins need right now is for UCLA to be the latest pitstop in the failing upwards trend that this guy is on…
Sounds like we need a change but it cannot be this mess of smoke and mirrors…