NC State is expected to hire on South Carolina assistant and longtime Virginia head coach Mark Bernardino to fill the vacancy on its coaching staff.
Bernardino spent 35 years as head coach at the University of Virginia, setting ACC records with 16 men’s team titles and 27 overall team titles. He “retired” from that role in 2013, but resurfaced less than a year later in South Carolina, where he was hired as associate head coach. His departure from UVA took many by surprise, prompting a flood of unanswered questions directed at administration.
Over the next few years, he’d help build South Carolina’s distance group into one of the nation’s best. That makes him an ideal fit for NC State’s opening, after associate head coach (and former director of the Wolfpack distance group) Gary Taylor left to take the head coaching role at Auburn.
As NC State has continued to rise into the NCAA’s elite tier on the men’s side, its coaching staff has seen significant shakeups. Virginia (Bernardino’s former coaching home) hired away former Wolfpack assistant Todd Desorbo to head its program last year, with great year-one results. Auburn followed that blueprint by hiring Taylor. Now it appears Bernardino will return to the ACC to coach against his former program of three-and-a-half decades.
Athletes on both teams were informed of the pending hire on Thursday.
He recruited my swimmer at South Carolina and never even gave her the courtesy of a phone call! Not very classy but he obviously is looking out for number one!
Great pickup by NC State!
Looking at the last 3 years of NCAA results, HUGE loss for SCAR. Wonder how they’ll rebound….. Hope Moody can make something happen outside of distance.
Mark will be a fantastic addition to Wolfpack Swimming and Diving. He was a tough competitor in his college days at UVA and his coaching credentials since then, speak for themselves. Even though there has been fierce competition between the two schools over these past four decades, NC State always had a deep respect for Mark’s talents and UVA…and I think the same can be said about Mark and NC State. He is returning to the ACC and it will be a better swimming conference because of him. Welcome to Raleigh , Coach Bernardino!!
This is almost the same as how Easterling went and coached (as a “volunteer”) at UVA during their historic run in the mid 2000’s. Only difference is that Bernardino will be getting paid and Easterling wasn’t.
As a big time NC State fan (went to NC State v Wisconsin dual meet just to watch them) and a huge Bernardino fan, it is safe to say that this is the most excited I’ve been in a long time!
Right there with you buddy!!
It will be interesting to see if SCAR‘s distance group can keep up their impressive swimming without Bernardino. I can’t wait to find out if Fynn Minuth and Brandonn Almeida can rebound from rough a NCAA meet back to their SEC form and even fight for high podium finishes at NCAAs next year
The man can flat out coach. It took him only a few years to overtake Nesty and Harvey as the SEC’s top distance coach. And that’s tough company
Gotta give the credit to Holloway. We were all wondering how the sprint group would perform under Guntoro after DeSorbo’s departure and we all know the answer to that. And now this hire?? Mark Bernardino will bulk up NCSU recruiting strength for sure. Holloway is a leader with a vision and plan!