The Notre Dame women’s swimming & diving program has found its new assistant coach, promoting Ryan Von Gunten, who spent the summer as the team’s operations intern.
Notre Dame has been in scramble mode in terms of coaching this past month. Former head coach Brian Barnes announced his resignation earlier this month for personal and family reasons, compounded by the fact that the team’s top assistant, Kate Kovenock, left to take a head coaching job at Brown just a week earlier.
That left the team both without a viable interim head coach on staff, along with a need for new assistants, all as the season was officially beginning.
The Irish filled the former need with longtime men’s head coach Tim Welsh, who retired last spring after 29 seasons at the helm for the Irish men. Now the latter position will go to Von Gunten, who first joined the Irish program at the beginning of the summer.
Von Gunten was a volunteer assistant with the Irish program’s in-state rivals Indiana. He spent just over a year as a volunteer assistant in Bloomington after seven prior years working various jobs at IU, including a stint as the compliance coordinator for the Hoosiers.
Von Gunten worked with many of the women swimmers this past summer while coaching for Irish Aquatics, and his promotion should give the team at least some level of continuity despite the dramatic coaching turnover.
You can read more about the hire in the school’s press release here.
The Irish finished 16th at last year’s NCAA championships, led by 200 breast champ Emma Reaney, who returns to the program for her senior year after spending the summer at SwimMAC’s professional hub in North Carolina.
