The University of South Carolina has hired Pam Swander as a new assistant coach for its men’s and women’s swim teams. She fills the hole on the South Carolina staff that was left vacant by the departure of associate head coach Mark Bernardino for NC State, though Swander hasn’t been given the same “associate head coach” title.
Swander’s son, Kevin, is also on the South Carolina staff, and will be entering his 7th season as an assistant next year.
Pam Swander will be the 2nd female assistant on South Carolina’s staff under head coach McGee Moody, joining a group that includes Erin Mullins and head diving coach Todd Sherritt.
“I am extremely excited that Coach Moody has given me the opportunity to join his staff at USC,” Pam Swander said. “I am honored to be a part of the future of the South Carolina swimming and diiving program.”
The move won’t be a far one for Pam Swander: she’s spent the last two years as the head coach of the USA Swimming club the South Carolina Swim Club in Mt. Pleasant. The team finished 2nd in combined team scoring at last summer’s South Carolina LSC Long COurse State Championships with 1474.5 points, just 45.5 points behind the champions from Y-Spartaquatics.
She has previous stops as an assistant at another South Carolina university, Clemson, where she was an assistant from 2004-2005 before they cut their program. She also spent 5 seasons as an assistant at Indiana.
She then spent 6 years with USA Swimming gold medal club SwimMAC Carolina, where she was a Regional Manager from 2010-2016 under the tenure of CEO David Marsh (who was the head U.S. Olympic women’s coach at the 2016 games in Rio).
Swander has held a number of significant administrative positions within USA Swimming’s umbrella as well: including Director of USA Swimming’s Select Camp, Vice Chair of Hospitality on the U.S. Olympic Trials Committee, and serving as the Indiana Swimming delegate to the USA Swimming National Convention.
South Carolina’s men finished 7th out of 10 teams, and the women placed 8th out of 12 at last year’s SEC Championship meet. Among the highlights was a 3rd-straight SEC title from then-senior Akram Mahmoud in the men’s 1650 free, making him the first SC swimmer to win 3-straight conference titles. Mahmoud trained primarily under Bernardino in the South Carolina distance group.
Hey Coach Pam,
YASELF!
Congratulations to USC Swimming! Pam was a great addition to SCSC and the SC Low Country swimming community. She truly tried to make a positive impression on everything she got involved in (Coaches, Swimmers, Parents, LSC and our Community). I agree with one of the other comments on the thread: The swim community in the Low Country could really build a great swim program where we build each other up vs tearing each other down. Once we accomplish this then we can start sharing our resources and banding together to build Aquatic centers which will allow our swimmers to excel and continue to attract other swimmers and teams for Nat’l caliber meets. I believe we can!
I have known Pam since my age group days, so 30 to 35+ years. I have been a competitor to her teams as an athlete and as a coach. I have always found her to be a very nice person and good coach. Congrats Pam and all my best on your new position. GO GAMECOCKS!
As someone who has been involved in South Carolina swimming a long time, it never ceases to amaze me that a few of the vocal minority can set the narrative regarding a subject. Every club has a few of those parents who are absolute poison and are only concerned about their child’s times. There is no thought on the TEAM and if they do not get what they want they make the most noise and life miserable for everyone while the other 98% of the club try to do things the right. These are the parents who would just assume burn the club down then give credit or take accountability for anything. Moreover, it’s amazing that these parents live vicariously… Read more »
Oh please. I love how the “outside observer” knows all the ins and outs of SCSC. Well, they might, since an outside observer actually runs SCSC (see what I did there?). If you don’t believe her coaching of the group was a disaster, and you are part of SCSC, I don’t know what you would call a disaster. Almost 65% of the kids in her practice group either left swimming all together, left the team or asked to be moved to another group. All the kids with Junior National time cuts left – and some left swimming all together! The remaining kids with Junior National cuts are with another coach and refused to be moved into her group. Look, nice… Read more »
I think everyone should look at both sides of the coin that is flipped in regards to this story. People can do all kinds of things and she does things too. I know if I did things it could be hard but also not that hard. We just all need to think about the way we think and also consider the way we dont think and that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
It seems to me that swim is the only sport that lays blame on the coach if the athlete doesn’t swim well or doesn’t drop time. If a basketball player goes 0-10 from the field we don’t blame the head coach. Maybe these few swimmers who blame their coach for underperforming are not putting in the work in and out of the pool to put themselves in a position to be successful. Pam did great work at SCSC and club is light years ahead of were it was two years ago. Great hire USC and the best to Coach Pam!!!
…I’ll make no judgement on whether or not coaches should receive blame, but to act as though coaches don’t receive blame for poor performance in other sports…is myopic.
Myopic, good word!! If team is underperforming then yes there is a leadership issue. This is not the case. SCSC Are 2018 short course State Champs. Super Bowl winning coaches don’t get fired.
RIP South Carolina
I don’t think y’all are giving her the credit or the chance she deserved. She accepted a position in which she had to merge two teams, and that is no easy task, especially with parents like y’all. She brought the team to a 2nd place finish in LCS and was a great coach in my opinion. She also had a lot of stress on her at the time, like not being able to live with her husband for six months, no one has even brought that up. That would be very difficult, and she had to manage a new team simultaneously. Even though many didn’t like her, I know she was always positive in her direction with the team, and… Read more »