Caitlin Hamilton will join Purdue University this fall for the upcoming 2025-2026 season as an associate head coach of the women’s swimming and diving program. Hamilton most recently was an associate coach at Kentucky, a program that has made numerous hires this offseason.
“I’m thrilled to have Caitlin return to campus and rejoin our team, working alongside me and everyone at the Burke Aquatic Center,” head coach John Klinge said. “She was an All-American and Big Ten medalist at our pool and has enjoyed an impactful coaching career since graduating from Purdue. She gained valuable experience as a head coach, and as an assistant –both here in the state of Indiana and in the SEC. Caitlin was the obvious choice and I’m grateful she’s back.”
Hamilton graduated from Purdue in 2013 and swam under Klinge from 2009-2013. Klinge has been at the helm since being hired prior to the start of the 2008-2009 season.
Most recently, Hamilton spent the last two seasons at Kentucky under head coach Bret Lundgaard. The Kentucky men were 9th out of 11 teams while the women were 11th out of 13 teams at the 2025 SEC Championships.
Prior to her time at Kentucky, Hamilton was the head coach at Illinois State, a women’s only program. While at Illinois State, Hamilton led the team to a second place finish at the 2022 Missouri Valley Conference Championships, the team’s highest finish since 2014. She also has had previous coaching stops at Indiana (2017-19), IUPUI (2015-17), and Wyoming (2014-15).
Hamilton joins the staff under Klinge. The previous assistant coach of women’s swimming and diving Nicole Monanian does not appear on the school’s website at the time of publishing.
The Purdue women finished 8th out of 14 teams at the 2025 Big Ten Championships. The team was led by its divers as the top four individual scorers were all on the diving side. The team finished 18th at the 2025 NCAA Championships with 53 points, all coming from diving.
Good for her. Smart move to leave for a higher ranking program, instead of leaving for a program who didn’t score NCAA points…
The only points were from Diving. Swimming did nothing outside of Big 10
True, however they’ve arguably had good improvement the last few years. Or maybe that’s just compared to the men
Better pool, better local talent, better academics, and perception of a better culture. It could be argued Purdue is on the rise compared to Kentucky.
Still more points than Kentucky
Anyone know what happened to Nicole?
UCONN?
Happy for her and wish her all the well.🫶🏻
Kentucky’s team culture is very toxic. Good move by her to get out of there.
Boom goes the Dynamite!
Boiler up!
I know it’s her alma mater and everything but 2 coaches leaving is a coincidence. 3 in 2 years seems like a trend. As I understand it, very well deserved promotion!
Yes definitely seems odd. Will be interesting to see if they improve or if the program is still just sitting dead in the water. A lot happened so I’m sure culture is in the gutter
One coach retired after being the 2nd longest tenured coach at Purdue for any sport. The next retired for personal reasons (not swimming related). And the third did actually leave. So really only 1 coach left in the several years. And associate and assistant coaches rotate teams and jobs fairly often.
I’m pretty sure they’re talking about Kentucky. I believe the previous assistant coach at Purdue spent 4 seasons there.
At Kentucky, almost the entire 1st staff has turned over now. Again, woof.
Seems she’s getting out of there while a whole new staff comes in. All brand new after two seasons? Woof