Sean Schimmel and the Penn State swim & dive program have parted ways after two seasons.
A school spokesperson told SwimSwam that Schimmel has “departed from the university” but declined to provide any additional information.
Schimmel was hired as an associate head coach with the Nittany Lions in June 2024, one month after Hollie Bonewit-Cron was named the new head coach of the program. The two worked together during the 2023-24 season at Miami (OH), where Bonewit-Cron was the head coach and Schimmel worked under her as an assistant.
Prior to joining the Redhawks in late 2023, Schimmel spent six years in Athens, Georgia, working as both a volunteer assistant for the University of Georgia and as an associate head coach for the ABSC Pro Dawgs.
He has also had collegiate coaching stints at Harvard, LSU, Maryland and Arkansas, serving as a head coach with the latter two.
Ethan Curl, who was also named a new assistant coach with Penn State in June 2024, was hired by Ohio University earlier this month.
In addition to Schimmel and Curl’s departures, Penn State also appears to have moved on from another staff member who was hired prior to the 2024-25 season, assistant diving coach Bill Williams, who no longer appears on the team website.
Penn State currently has job postings up on its website for an associate/assistant men’s and women’s swimming coach and a head diving coach.
The school hired Buck Smith as its head diving coach in September 2024, but he did not return for a second season. Ryan Sullivan, who was hired as an assistant prior to the 2024-25 campaign, was also not renewed for 2025-26.
Penn State has struggled to gain any momentum in the last two seasons under Bonewit-Cron after former head coach Tim Murphy was fired in April 2024 after being placed on an unspecified leave of absence earlier that season.
The Nittany Lions placed 13th out of 14 teams at the 2026 Women’s Big Ten Championships after taking 12th in 2025. The men’s program has finished ninth out of nine teams at Big Tens the past two years.
At the NCAA level, the program qualified one swimmer, Mariano Lazzerini, for the 2026 Men’s NCAA Championships, and he went on to score five points by placing 12th in the 100 breaststroke. The men also fielded teams in the 200 and 400 medley relays at NCAAs but failed to score.
The women qualified diver Grace Brammer for NCAAs this past season, with her highest finish being 36th in the 3-meter event.
Penn State didn’t send any swimmers or divers to the 2025 NCAA Championships.
In 2024, prior to the hiring of the current regime, the Penn State women placed ninth out of 12 teams at Big Tens, while the men took seventh out of eight teams.
The men’s team scored eight points at the 2024 NCAAs, with Lazzerini and Cooper Morley chipping in three points apiece, while the 400 medley relay also got on the board with a 16th-place finish.
Penn State currently has Bonewit-Cron, assistant coaches Tommy Johnson and Nicole McConnell, and assistant diving coach Trevor Sisson listed as staff members on its website, along with Director of Operations Ricky Dove.
Ahh yes, a hallmark of 18-22 year old men: avoiding any culpability.
Any program that is not performing well is a shared responsibility between administrators, athletes, and coaches. It’s a 3 dimensional spectrum. In some cases, the coaches take more blame. In some case, the athletes, In some cases, the administrators.
I’ve never heard of a case where it’s entirely the fault of one person.
So then why is it that I see so many messages squarely placing the blame on a single coach, while simultaneously shouting at anyone who suggests that an athlete has any responsibility for their performance? “They don’t owe you anything!!”
No disrespect to the current staff – what PSU needs to be successful is pure grind. Need a Shamokin blue collar attitude in a white collar sport. IYKYK. We had it – just need to find it again.
I think I’ve seen this film before….. and I didn’t like the ending
It’s upsetting to see the program heading in this direction but the administration has never seen the swim & dive team as a priority, as made evidently clear by the fact they hired Hollie in the first place. If I as an alum, many years removed from the team and sport, heard how terrible of a hire she was going to be, from multiple former and current swimmers as well as coaches, how could the administration have not had an inkling something was off? They either didn’t do their due diligence or don’t care about the future of the team. Not sure which is worse.
I have heard many first hand accounts from legit people as well as seen/heard some myself. The vacation comments are certainly accurate, but not the biggest problem. The swimmers have had many issues with Hollie the past two years. It probably has to do with things like her talking trash about a relay at Big Ten’s without realizing that there was still a swimmer in the room. Great way to build the culture. I truly hope that administration was not aware of that, because keeping a coach after being heard talking trash about the team is appalling. Yes, I’m sure the coaches complain about things, but usually behind closed doors.
A lot of these vacations and times away seem to… Read more »
Nobody on the Penn state team chose to swim for Hollie nor did she pick them to be on the team. That’s a tough spot for everyone involved. I know a lot of teams that struggle with a new coach for 2 years because of this same reason. Her first recruits are on the way this fall. Even that recruiting year was off to a slow start since the new staff was not even hired until August.
Bad coaching is bad coaching. You can make those excuses but a good coach can come in and turn it around. Look at Pitt…
I also doubt ANY other college swim coach took a vacation after Christmas and told swimmers to train on their own at home. I’m not sure any swimmer would pick that coach.
So her behavior is ok because she did not recruit the current athletes?
Can you imagine the new PSU football coach coming on with this mentality of I didn’t recruit these athletes so I’m not responsible for them? Let’s give it a couple of seasons so I can get my own recruits.
Sure some things take time, no disagreement there, but like “Observer” stated, that doesn’t excuse things like not realizing an athlete is in the room when you are talking badly about the team, constantly being away from the team, and all of the other issues that have been brought up in the comments. Plus, this years freshman would be her first recruiting class. The swim coach is also typically the one to hire staff so it’s on her that staff was getting hired so late. Maybe if she was around during the summer they could have gotten a jump on recruiting.
Hollie is the worst coach I’ve ever had by far
I emerged from a long-exposure hiatus just in time to watch the horizon glow with the inevitable: another program under HBC’s helm buckling into a slow-motion train wreck.
I emerged from a long-exposure hiatus just in time to watch the horizon glow with the inevitable: another program under HBC’s helm buckling into a slow-motion wreck. To anyone with a pulse and a basic understanding of coaching swimming, her leadership isn’t a strategy—it’s a countdown. It makes you stop and think, could this be tactical? How can it be this bad? The wreckage is similar to the scorched-earth retreat of ISIS in the mid east. The goals aren’t just abandoned, they’re razed, leaving nothing behind but the acrid smoke of an inevitable dumpster fire and a landscape littered with athletes that have a terrible memory of their time in college athletics, along with coaches that sit there all wondering… Read more »
And that’s putting it mildly