Former U.S. National Team Director Mark Schubert has been announced as an assistant coach for the men’s and women’s swimming programs at Golden West College.
The announcement was made this morning via a press release, which can be read in full here. An additional announcement was also shared on Instagram, which can be viewed below.
“We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Coach Schubert back at Golden West,” said Danny Johnson, Athletic Director at Golden West. “His passion for developing swimmers at all levels and his lifetime of accomplishments make him an invaluable addition to our coaching staff. Our student-athletes will benefit tremendously from his experience.”
Schubert is no stranger to Golden West, having previously served as the Head Coach from 2011 to 2016, where he led the team to four 3C2A state team titles.
Just last month, we reported that Schubert would return to his roots in Southern California as the National Team Coach for the Evolution Racing Club. Evolution is located in Mission Viejo, where Schubert first made his mark in coaching in 1972 with the Mission Viejo Nadadores. He grew the team from 50 to 500 members, with his swimmers winning 17 Olympic medals and 124 event U.S. National Championships. He coached the Mission Viejo Nadadores from 1972 to 1985.
Evolution was founded in 2014 by two-time Ecuadorian Olympian Felipe Delgado. They train out of Santa Margarita Catholic High School, the five-time defending California High School State Champions in girls’ swimming and diving.
Schubert confirmed to SwimSwam that his main job is still with Evolution, but he will be assisting his friend, Tracey Maurer, part-time at Golden West.
Prior to his recent move to Evolution, Schubert was leading a professional group on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, based at the American Renaissance Academy. He officially named the group Podium Swim Club and began in that role in September.
Before transitioning to Hawaii, Schubert was leading The Swim Team (TST) and coaching Chinese swimmers abroad. Schubert mentioned that ‘three or four’ families from TST would be joining him in Hawaii and expressed hope that Paris 2024 Olympian David Johnston would join him in Oahu after completing the 2024-25 season at the University of Texas.
Schubert served as the USA Swimming National Team Director from 2006 to 2010. He was also previously the head coach at USC and the University of Texas. He was at Texas from 1988 to 1992, leaving the position with two NCAA women’s team championships. During his time at USC from 1992 to 2006, he earned one NCAA women’s team title.
The 76-year-old is an multi-time U.S. Olympic Swim Coach, having served on the U.S. Olympic staff from 1984 to 2008. Over the course of his career, he has coached 33 Olympians who collectively earned 29 Olympic gold medals. Some of his most successful swimmers include Janet Evans, Shirley Babashoff, Brian Goodell, Mike O’Brien, Sippy Woodhead, Kaitlin Sandeno, Jessica Hardy, Larsen Jensen, Erik Vendt, Lindsay (Benko) Mintenko, Ous Mellouli, and Dara Torres.
the chin diaper tho.
Congratulations Mark! You’re the best!!
Retire already, Jeeeeeeesh. This guy has hopped coaching gigs more times in the last few years than hes probably changed his underwear.
We did not need that visual…
Wasn’t there some kind of abuse hiding pre-Safe Sport that would normally be a dequal event for a coach these days?
Safesport doesn’t have a statute of limitations. The new CEO of USA Swimming just resigned after like 24 hours due to Safesport report from decades before Safesport existed.
Didn’t some of his recent swimmers test positive for steroids.
and other stuff?
1 that I can think of, Michael Brinegar. I can’t think of any other recent ones?
(Hafanoui got suspended but not for testing positive, instead for missing tests).
He probably missed the test because he knew that he would test positive
Happy for anybody to be skeptical about anything in this sport. Based on what I understand about Hafanoui’s situation, I’m inclined to believe that they weren’t intentional.
Jessica Hardy and Ous Mellouli both were suspended for positive tests
He never tested positive for any substance – just had ‘elevated blood levels’ from samples collected in 2022, during a period when he was recovering from COVID-19 and had taken a significant break from training. This site is garbage
Thanks for weighing in, Mr. Brinegar.
Hope Michael enjoys getting his suspension extended for training with the family club.
Also, “elevated blood levels” is a weird word salad to sub in for “doping.” Make up a better one.
I’ve always been super curious about which coach and which university have had the greatest number of swimmers who tested positive (putting countries aside here…because of course, East Germany, Russia, China have extensive histories).
It feels like Schubert and USC would be up there (from 2000s, 2010s especially). Any other “high-offenders” that others can recall?
Am guessing Swimswam could never do a deep-dive article on this without a huge headache of defamation/lawsuit threats.
Remember thar Schubert also coached in China…
“Welcome to Walmart, can I get you a shopping cart?”
Great in his prime but the D group pre Paris was a disaster. Hafnoui was World Champ in 2 Events then moved to Cali to not going to Olympics. Others had bad swims or no swims other than Johnston. Might be time to let other coaches/swimmers get the limelight and not sell snake oil.
Limelight? He’s going to be an assistant at Golden West. Mean absolutely no disrespect to them but it’s not like he’s going to be the head coach at some place like Mission Viejo, or taking over a major college program. Who cares if he coaches until the coroner has to pick him up at the pool. He doesn’t walk on water or anything, and the sport continues to evolve, but he has forgotten more about swimming than most people know about it. If he were talking on deck, I’d stop to listen just to get his perspective, whether I agreed with it or not.
Please- what do you mean “he’s forgotten more about swimming…”
This is an expression that people use to hype up someone’s knowledge base. Basically the idea behind the idiom is that we all have a subset of things we’ve ever learned: we remember some percentage of those things and we’ve forgotten some percentage of those things, and the assumption is we remember more of what we’ve learned than what we’ve forgotten. Because person X has forgotten more than some other person ever knew, that implies that the amount they still now must be so prodigious and impressive.
Thanks for the compliments. A par-time gig to assist my friend Head Coach Tracey Mauer. My main position is Senior Coach with Evolution Racing Club. Lots of fun coaching JC kids as they really appreciate their big improvements!
Have fun. Probably see you on deck some time when you’re in Texas.
Sounds like assistant coach at a non-major college working with a handful of athletes is a heck of a good fit, then.
If President Trump can lead the USA into the Golden Age, Coach Schubert can lead Golden West to greatness!
I see what you did there. Very clever anti-joke.