Top Candidates for Texas & Alabama Coaching Gigs

Latest – Catherine Vogt of USC is not going after the job, nor is Dave Geyer from LSU.

Earlier today, the University of Texas announced that they had parted ways with women’s head coach Kim Brackin, which opened up a second major position after Alabama coach Eric McIlquham stepped down earlier this week.

Both positions are hugely desirable. Both jobs come with outstanding facilities (both pools and otherwise) on the strengths of highly-profitable football programs. Both programs are secure – neither program is in any sort of financial trouble where they’d have to worry about cutting teams (and are in fact two of the most profitable athletics programs in the country). Let’s take a look at the unique aspects of both programs, and what makes them attractive, and then speculate on a few potential candidates (though we haven’t heard any solid rumors yet of who might be applying for these jobs).

Texas

This is the third women’s coach that Texas will be seeking to replace in the past six-months, after their head soccer and women’s basketball coaches were also relieved of duties, so there may be a bit of coach-search-fatigue in Austin.

This will be the most desirable job to come open this year, for those who are ok with having only a women’s program available, so anybody and everybody who is looking to crack into the elite coaching ranks will be applying. Austin is a very popular place to live, there’s a huge local swimming community, it sits in one of the biggest and best recruiting areas in the country, and it offers the opportunity to possibly bring in post-grad swimmers and establish a reputation there as well.

But what will really be huge is the money. Coaches at Texas are very well-paid, and tack on the massive revenue earned from the annual UT Summer Swim Camp, and this probably is one of the highest-paying single-gender positions in the country.

The first thing to rule out is men’s coach Eddie Reese taking over the women’s program. At this point in his career, he has no need to, especially given his health. I’d imagine that his time with Texas is probably nearing it’s close as well, and if the Texas administration recognizes that, they would be shy about merging the programs at this point. Current Texas assistant Jim Henry, who is in charge of the distance group at Texas, is very popular. But the distance group might have been the poorest-performing this last year, and I think politics keeps him from being promoted.

There are a few assistants who would be good candidates – notably Kristen Cunnane from Cal and Jennifer Woodruff of Tennessee are top names, and both receive rave reviews, but I don’t know if Texas is looking to go the assistant route again (remember that Brackin was an assistant before coming to Texas). Woodruff especially would be interesting, as Texas has already hired one ex-Vol this year in their soccer coach – but her husband is the Tennessee tennis coach, so it’s unlikely that she goes anywhere.

Catherine Vogt at USC is also due for a head coaching gig (she’s had a few as head coach at various open water meets), but her husband is in school at USC earning a graduate degree after completing military service – and I think she’s happy in Southern California.

(Update: Vogt confirmed that she is not going after the job. ” I feel that we have a special thing going at Southern California; with plans for renovations to the swim stadium, such great support from the Athletic Department, and an exciting group of athletes to work with as we head to London.”)

So who are head coaches who would be options for the program? I think there’s a few who, with different timing, could be good candidates.

If Texas is seeking out another female candidate (the school has shown a history of hiring female head coaches for female teams), there aren’t many with head coaching experience at big programs who would leave – maybe Lea Maurer could be lured away from Stanford, if it weren’t her alma mater.

If there were a no-brainer favorite, it would be Arizona State’s Dorse Tierney-Walker. Her Sun Devils had an outstanding NCAA Championship meet on the women’s side and placed 11th (and she also coaches the men – a rarity in college swimming). She was previously the co-women’s head coach at Auburn during their National Championships, was the women’s head coach at Indiana for 7 years (including two Big Ten Coach of the Year awards), and has worked on the international level. What’s more is that she’s a former 16-time All-American at Texas.

But I think there’s two huge candidates coming out of the mid-major ranks that would be awesome candidates if the administration has the foresight to look at them – Kristin Hill from Boise State and Liz Hinkleman out of Toledo.

Hinkelman has a huge future, but is incredibly young for what she’s accomplished – she only graduated from Toledo in 2008. She does have the credentials of developing outstanding breaststrokers though, and with Texas’ best returning swimmer next year being breaststroker Laura Sogar, that would make sense as a short-term decision.

But for me, I think Hill is the 1b favorite after Tierney-Walker (barring surprise entries, like the big one mentioned way below). She took a relay to the NCAA Championships last year from the swimming wasteland that is Idaho, and has big Texas ties – she was a former assistant at Texas A&M during the years of Olympians Christine Marshall, Julia Wilkinson and Triin Aljand.

Whitney Hite rebooted the Wisconsin program in just one year, especially the men, but I don’t think he’s ready to leave Wisconsin already.

Geyer says that he’s not applying for the job.

I think that LSU’s Dave Geyer is a definite possibility. He’s done really, really good things at LSU in what has not been the easiest of situations for him. That includes developing a National-Team sprinter in Amanda Kendall. he’s also got the geography (Baton Rouge is not far from Austin). I think that, if he applies, Geyer will be among the two-or-three finalists.

Martyn Wilby, the women’s associate-head-coach of the women’s program at Florida, will also get a long-hard look. He’s been the associate-head-coach since 2006, and was an assistant for 8 years before that. Though Gregg Troy is still the true head coach in Gainesville, with so much of his focus turned this year to his post-grads, Wilby has had every-bit of the head coach experience.

Greg Rhodenbaugh and his turnaround at Missouri, as well as a former gig as a top assistant at Arizona, is another good candidate. As excited as he must be about the Tigers’ transition to the SEC next year, it would be hard to pass up this job, and he already recruits Texas heavily. Tennessee’s Matt Kredich will be thrown around as well, but he and his family are very comfortable in Knoxville, and he’s not going to leave Tennessee unless Texas can find a way to improve that situation, which would probably be a lot of work on both ends.

David Marsh & Mark Schubert

Here’s a fun one to speculate about courtesy of Garrett McCaffrey – does David Marsh get back into college coaching at Texas? Could he take over the women’s program, and then be the coach-in-waiting to unify both the men and the women? It would be post-Olympics, so he wouldn’t have a huge concern about leaving his postgrads – and Austin would conceivably be a very desirable location for them to come train anyway.

The dynamic in the short-term between Marsh and Reese would be quite interesting in that scenario. It seems like a long-shot, but this is a huge program. He’s got kids in high school though, and I don’t think it will happen, but it is a nice dream to have.

Along a similar line, I don’t think that former National Team coach Mark Schubert’s elite-coaching career is over either. I might see him better at Alabama out of these two jobs, though. Somewhere where he could step in and run the show, and do things his way. He’s got as many coaching credentials as anybody in the world. He already was the coach of the Texas women’s team once from 1989 to 1992, and formerly was the head coach at USC too (he has three team championships and 49 individual titles to his name). I don’t think Texas brings him back for a second round, especially given that he’s up in years and they’ll be seeking out a long-term answer.

Alabama

The Alabama program would come with both a men’s and a women’s program. The big challenge with this team is recruiting competition – the Crimson Tide swim in the very-deep SEC; in a state with powerhouse Auburn; and have very little in the way of a home-crowd swimming base to recruit from.

To me, the top candidate for this job would have to be Florida Gulf Coast’s Neal Studd. He has built that program from nothing, with an outdoor pool (though a fairly nice one), and less-than-full scholarship funding. A program like Alabama is probably looking for someone with head-coaching experience (Studd fits the bill on that front). He lost his assistant this year as well, so there will be change at FGCU either way. The holdback for him would be the Florida lifestyle, not wanting to uproot a young family, and the fact that he really loves the job he has now. I think it’s safe to say that his name will come up in every vacancy conversation that happens this summer.

Here’s a fun possibility – could Brackin end up in Tuscaloosa? She was a top assistant at Auburn before coming to Texas, and so has had success in bringing kids to the state of Alabama. I would guess not, but don’t rule it out, either.

Florida men’s associate head coach Anthony Nestby will have every opportunity at this position as well, as he’s got big-time SEC credentials behind him from his work at Florida, as well as huge swimming cred of his own.

For now, nobody had confirmed (nor denied) their candidacy for either of these jobs, but we’ll keep you posted on what we hear.