The University of Pittsburgh has announced Katie Kasprzak as its new Director of Swimming & Diving, as the program goes through a “strategic restructuring” following the resignation of Chase Kreitler earlier this month.
Kasprzak takes over as the leader of the Pitt swimming & diving program after serving as the Panthers’ diving coach since 2017.
Under the team’s new model, Kasprzak will serve as the leader of the program, “with full responsibility for the direction, culture and success of Pitt Swimming & Diving,” and will hire dedicated coaches for swimming and diving. Pitt called it “an innovative model that pairs her program-wide vision with specialized coaching expertise at each discipline’s highest level.”
Kasprzak’s hiring comes just over a week after Kreitler’s resignation, which came on the heels of one of the best seasons in program history, as the Panther women had their best NCAA Championship showing ever and the men had their highest finish in 73 years.
Kreitler said he was informed by Pitt Athletics that “the department intends to move in a different strategic direction after the 2026–2027 season,” and despite being offered to coach one more year, felt it was in his best interest to move on.
In Tuesday’s announcement, Kasprzak said she’ll maintain some coaching responsibilities on the diving side, but her first primary task will be leading national searches for new swim and dive head coaches.
“I am incredibly grateful to Allen Greene, Blaire Ford and the University of Pittsburgh for this opportunity,” Kasprzak said. “This program means a great deal to me, and I’m fully committed to building on the strong foundation we have in place. While I’ll continue some coaching responsibilities with diving, this role allows us to better support our student-athletes, coaches, alumni, and donors.
“My number one priority will be leading a national search for head swimming and head diving coaches who align with our vision and the profile our student-athletes helped define. This structure creates the capacity to lead, mentor, and support at a level the program hasn’t had before. I’m excited to build an environment where coaches can focus on coaching and developing meaningful relationships with our athletes, and I trust that under this new structure, the best is still ahead of Pitt.”
This is a move we’ve seen before. In February 2025, Georgia Tech named former diving coach John Ames as the new leader of its swim & dive program.
Since the conclusion of the Men’s NCAA Championships in late March, some Pitt swimmers have either entered the portal or transferred elsewhere, with an uptick over the last week following Kreitler’s resignation. That includes Julian Koch, who rewrote the men’s program record books this past season and opted to move on to Tennessee in late April.
Swim & dive team members met with Athletic Director Allan Greene when Kreitler resigned and said they “left with no real answers.”
Pitt Athletics recently sent a letter to its swimming & diving community, particularly the alumni, reaffirming its commitment to continuing the swim & dive program.
In Tuesday’s announcement, Greene said: “Katie has established herself as one of the premier coaches in the country, and what sets her apart goes well beyond the technical side of the sport. She is a strategic thinker and a culture builder. She is deeply invested in the total development of our student-athletes academically, athletically and personally. That speaks to the kind of leader and mentor she is, and that is exactly the profile we wanted leading this program. She is a genuine team player and a respected partner throughout our athletics department.
“This restructuring is a deliberate and thoughtful response to the evolving realities of college athletics and the responsibilities placed on coaches today that go well beyond the pool. This role gives Katie the opportunity to apply her expertise and impact across our entire swimming & diving program, and the model we are building around her is one we believe will set a new standard for how programs like ours can operate and compete.”
Over her nine seasons with the program, Kasprzak has turned Pitt into one of the most successful diving programs in the ACC. She’s coached 17 divers to a combined 32 NCAA Championship qualifications, and in 2024, became the first female coach to earn an ACC Coach of the Year accolade in either men’s or women’s swimming & diving when she won ACC Men’s Diving Coach of the Year. That year saw Pitt’s Cameron Cash sweep the ACC titles in the men’s 3-meter and platform events, and he went on to score in both events at NCAAs.
In 2025-26, Pitt sent a program-best 12 divers to the NCAA Zone Championships, with five advancing to the NCAA Championships.
Prior to Pitt, Kasprzak served as head coach of the Duke Diving Club in Durham, N.C., where she guided the program to more than 10 national youth titles. USA Diving recognized the Duke Diving Club as its most improved club in the country in 2014.
A native of Harpenden, England, Kasprzak also has some international experience, having served as the diving technical operations manager for the organizing committee at the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Last season, Pitt placed 16th at the Women’s NCAA Championships, their highest finish ever, and the men placed 20th, their best showing since 1953. At the ACC Championships, the Panther women placed 6th and men were 11th.
In addition to Koch moving on to Tennessee, Sydney Gring, who scored 14 points at Women’s NCAAs, and Evan Witte, a relay-only swimmer at Men’s NCAAs, have entered the transfer portal.
Not really reassuring as an alum. I’ll hold on to my donations for a while.
This article is super misleading…
Why word it that John Ames is the leader of the GT. He is the Head coach. Katie is the director.
Comparing GT and Pitt upsets people in the swim community. This is a completely different scenario.
Also, Koch entered the transfer portal while Chase was still the HC.
Don’t recall seeing so much back lash when a swim coach is named director and the dive coach works under them. Pretty sure a good coach is a good coach, and Katie has done a great job. Maybe you should see how it plays out, no one knows the full story
And how many swim events vs. dive events?
This is why college/coaches/admins etc can’t be trusted. And yet another reason why transferring without penalty should be a viable path. Colleges want to act like corporations then they will treated as such.
Panther Pro doing the lords work
Hope the picture works. But this is how I’m feeling in these comments lol.
The financial optics here are hard to ignore.
Elevating Katie comes with a commensurate salary increase – a cost that doesn’t disappear. Yet the institution is simultaneously signaling reduced program investment while still needing to fund two head coaching searches. The math simply doesn’t pencil out.
More troubling is what this means for the search itself. Compensation drives candidate quality, and with a constrained budget and the program’s current reputational challenges, what caliber of candidate does this realistically attract?
A national search requires national-caliber salaries and a compelling story to tell.
Right now, this program appears to be offering neither.
Panther is getting crushed here, somewhat unfairly, but he has to answer the question – who is going to come in, now, and be primary swim coach after the diving coach has been promoted to director, presumably with a requisite raise? I mean, at that point, just pay Chase whatever he wanted. Unless their plan is some tag team of assistant level swim coaches, which will no way be as successful.
That’s a fair question and I’ll do my best since you asked me to answer it. I’m noticing a few common threads so I’ll number and letter my points below:
1. This seems to be structured differently to other director positions. She is heading (2) national searches and we do not know the specifics or internal structure of those searches. What control does she have? What is the impact of her say in the process?
This position could be structured two ways:
a. A direct program control position situated as the full program head.
b. An advisory position situated within the athletic department.
I don’t fully know which it is and that determines the answer to your… Read more »
Okay, long rambling response above. TL;DR. I don’t know. If the autonomy and the money are there, the coaches will come. We don’t know the exact scope of Katie’s new role but she is a great person and very smart and I am sure she can do very well for the program. We don’t know if this is part of Chases resignation or if it’s a new step and we probably will never know anything aside from next year’s expense report to see what decisions may have been made.
Thanks for all the detail, Panther. I do admire your optimism and I think everyone here was excited for Pitt’s resurgence as a bonafide swimming program. The stories of late are just leading to a lot of questions and little to no clarity. Hope for the best.
I gotta find things to be optimistic about. I hope we get more good news. I just think everyone jumping on this as a bad thing are being premature. Many don’t know Katie, or have about as much information as I do on the internal stuff.
The financial optics here are hard to ignore.
Elevating Katie comes with a commensurate salary increase – a cost that doesn’t disappear. Yet the institution is simultaneously signaling reduced program investment while still needing to fund two head coaching searches. The math simply doesn’t pencil out.
More troubling is what this means for the search itself. Compensation drives candidate quality, and with a constrained budget and the program’s current reputational challenges, what caliber of candidate does this realistically attract?
A national search requires national-caliber salaries and a compelling story to tell.
Right now, this program appears to be offering neither.
Pitt is just following the direction of the NCAA. Put diving at the forefront over swimming.
I feel bad for all of the posters here who don’t see this and what is happening in the landscape.