…Since Dennis Pursley was announced as the new head coach of Alabama, questions have been flying about whether he and his massive coaching staff would be able to get the job done, many years removed from the college scene, and even moreso about whether Pursley would be able to use his huge international connections to bring in immediate help from overseas. The Crimson Tide have released their 2012-2013 roster, and it looks like he’s picked up at least one on the men’s side: Brett Walsh from South Africa. He’s not quite a household name in his native country yet, but he’s definitely headed that way as an elite butterflier. He has long course bests of 24.71 in the 50 and 55.38 in the 100 in long course. The latter converts to around a 48-mid. He’s also got some freestyle chops. The women didn’t have any internationals, but nearly doubled the size of their roster with 12 freshmen. See the full lineups here…
…The NCAA is calling the triathlon the next target on the varsity emerging sports list, according to NCAA.org correspondent Gary Brown. The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics already has 6 of 10 letters they need from programs to begin a formal exploration of whether to establish it as an emerging sport, with Navy committing to become the 7th. Emerging sports are treated as a semi-NCAA status. They gain more privelages from the NCAA without establishing a full-blown championship to see whether or not more schools are able to successfully add it. There will be an interesting debate about how to turn these triathlons into the team event that the NCAA usually looks for. Other recent sports labeled emerging include equestrian and beach volleyball…
…Florida State has hiredColeman Weibley as their new Director of Operations. He comes to the Seminoles after holding the same position at the Unitersity of Tennessee. This role, largely administrative, is very important to a swim team as he takes a lot of the communication and administrative duties off of the coaching staff. At Tennessee, he was also in charge of organizing recruiting weekends…
Bama is on the rise this year. This staff on deck is now one of the best in the country and i think they will surprise a lot of people this year. Brett Walsh is more of a freestyler he has bests of 23.06 and 51.18 in the 50 and 100 free. Not only do they have brett but they also have brought in crews wellford out of memphis who has bests of 57.75 and 2:04.00 LCM in the backstrokes. They also brought in Brian Westlake out of california who has bests of 1:52.8 3:55.8 and 15:48 in the freestyles. These three freshmen will help the tide to hopefully a better finish. Roll tide
great let’s add triathlon when we can’t even keep men’s swimming afloat.
Not really a massive staff when you consider that two of them are his family members (son and daughter) and remember that all those coaches are covering a men’s and women’s team. Not sure though how quickly they will rise. It takes time to “rebuild” and there are tons of teams currently “rebuilding” that have hopes of winning Championships. Lots and lots of new coaching staffs out there. The SEC is one of the toughest conferences around. It is a lofty goal for most teams to end up top 3 in that conference much less top 10 in the NCAA. Truth is, everyone wants to be there, everyone tries to be there, but only 10 teams get to be there… Read more »