Catholic University, an NCAA Division III University, has fired head coach Chris Paynter after he lead his team to the Landmark Conference Title, multiple sources have told SwimSwam.
The school’s athletics directors emailed the team saying that the decision was made after an internal matters review, and a team meeting was called for Tuesday evening, but no other information about the decision has been made available.
SwimSwam has reached out to Paynter for comment.
Paynter was with the program for only one season, where the men’s team won its 10th straight Landmark Conference Championship. The women’s team, meanwhile, repeated as the conference runners-up.
Paynter previously served at another Landmark Conference institution, spending three seasons leading the team at Wilkes University. In 2025, he led the Wilkes men’s program to its best dual meet record in program history, finishing at 8–2. The men’s team placed 6th at the 2024 Landmark Conference Championships. The Wilkes women’s program finished the 2024–25 season with a 3–6–1 record and placed 9th out of 10 teams at the Landmark Conference Championships.
Paynter swam collegiately at Division I Villanova University in Pennsylvania. He is a two-time Big East Champion and a six-time All-Big East performer as a member of various relay teams. He helped lead the Wildcats to Big East titles in both 2017 and 2018 as a member of the 200 freestyle relays. Paynter contributed to those efforts by earning medals in the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays. As an individual competitor, he was a six-time medalist—earning two medals each in the 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle, and 100 butterfly.
Paynter succeeded John Bodden, who served as Catholic’s head swimming coach and aquatics director. Bodden spent three years as head coach of Catholic University after one season as their graduate assistant. A native of George Town in the Cayman Islands, Bodden represented his home country at the 2019 Pan American Games. He returned to the Cayman Islands to serve as the head coach of the Stingray Swim Club.
Schools in general, but SPECIFICALLY private/religious schools love to sweep things under the rug and keep it all hidden as if never happened. For some reason swimming is a sport where this happens the most. He must have done some BAD things to be let go immediately and after such continued success. So either he did some very bad things and they’re hiding it for “reputation” purposes, or the school truly had zero reason and is keeping it a secret. I doubt the latter though because people and specifically him would be talking about it. Nobody is and that screams guilt on his end. It also shows that you can’t trust the school since they won’t divulge what happened even… Read more »
Can someone just say what happened. Why was he even fired?
It’s kinda crazy that it’s gone this long and the most serious allegation is “Wilkes swimmers are sad that he left for a better job.”
HR violation. Inappropriate relationship, not with an athlete or student. He handled things poorly. ALLEGEDLY
Someone just texted me something to this effect. Will work on fact checking it.
inappropriate relationship? What does that mean if it wasn’t with a student or athlete
With an assistant?
Common Paynter L. It’s almost like he’s Kevin Durant going from the losing team in the conference right to the stacked team who has won multiple conferences in previous years. The guy snaked Wilkes and now has to pay the price.
Do you realize how many coaches/teacher are fired unjustly? Chris Paynter IS an amazing coach and was strictly by the book. Before you start commenting on “oh he must have done something “ get your facts! Catholic should have done a deep dive of the accusations surrounding this situation! Not just fire someone without cause! If Your children are in this program I would pull them immediately!!!!
What were the accusations in the first place?
Please get your facts right! Clearly you have no clue about what is going on here. Catholic DID conduct an internal investigation and decided what Paytner did was a fireable offense. However, they are unable to share what happened to his swimmers, leaving them angry, with questions unanswered and no closure.
Is there any assumptions, you don’t just fire someone out of nowhere without ANY form of suspicion
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This is my experience when my coach was fired.
He was fired for defending his wife who was being bullied by athletes on another team. He said some swear words; probably shouldn’t have, but the kids were much worse to his wife. So much so that I cannot repeat what was said, and personally, I think those athletes deserved to be punished but the school allowed the harassment for months.
We don’t know the situation with this coach. We don’t know the background. It might have been a firable offense, but who knows it could have been like my coach where it’s a load of BS and everyone knows it.
Seems like the standard story of a transformational coach coming in to an under-performing program and ruffling feathers of the “establishment” swimmers. Cue the theme for Hoosiers……
The Catholic swim team has been performing at the top of the conference for years prior to Paynter’s arrival as coach this past year. It’s Paynter’s fault the women’s team lost this year solely due to his errors in meet seeding for the Landmark Conference championships.
Surely a fireable offense.
Being an outsider, I have been following Catholic University swim team for many years. With that being said, Paynter made a serious error in seeding. The women’s team would’ve won, it they were seeded properly.
Elite “outsider” intel.
They won 9 conference titles in a row before his arrival, read the article
TL;DR
“Transformational.” He took the job at Catholic after recruiting a full class in at Wilkes. None of the swimmers at Catholic were his. The success of that program can be attributed to previous coaches. He walked out on Wilkes and it was just a matter of time before he walked out on Catholic.
Firing = walking out? Weird. Do tell.
They dont just fire coaches for no reasoning like that, especially after a great season. He’s responsible for many young people who just left their childhood homes less than a year to 3 years ago typically speaking. The school has an obligation to prioritize their safety, and also their own reputation as a school. Long ago are the days where bad things get slipped under the rug and allowed/rewarded. Not sure what he did but i’m sure he deserved it.
In general, I would agree that usually something like this after a good season would be indicative of a significant misstep on the part of a coach. That said, unless either Coach Paynter or CUA gives more info, there is also the possibility that he did something that a religious school might have a problem with but that wouldn’t be an issue elsewhere.
Yikes. Catholic has unfortunately really struggled to keep a consistent coach since the 🐐 Paul Waas left
Free my guy Chris! Innocent until proven guilty
What is he “guilty” for?