In concurrence with its National Team rosters released today, USA Swimming has also announced the coaches that make up the USA Swimming National Team Coaches roster.
USA Swimming’s National Team Coaches – 2015-2016
The criteria is both simple and complex. Any coach who places an athlete on the national team is honored as a national team coach. That’s the simple part. Of course, it can get complicated trying to define who is a given athletes’s “primary coach” at any given point, especially with the trend of swimmers training with one club while officially representing another.
USA Swimming has some guidelines for determining and defining coaches, and you can view those here. The main takeaway is that USA Swimming works to include the coach who actually writes and runs the workout for each athlete, instead just the head coach of whatever club the swimmer represents nationally. There can also be multiple coaches added for the same athlete, with different classifications for the athlete’s college coach, current coach, developmental coach and so on.
The National Team coaches are eligible to earn bonuses through the Coach Incentive Program. Coaches earn bonuses when their athletes earn medals at USA Swimming’s Operation Gold meet for the year. That’s typically the major focus meet for the national team; last year it was the World Championships, and the year before that, the Pan Pacific Championships. It would seem most likely that next year’s Operation Gold meet will be the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
You can read more about the coach incentive program here.
We’ve republished the full list of U.S. National Team coaches below, and you can also find them on USA Swimming’s National Team Coaches page.
Arthur Albiero
Tony Batis
Tim Bauer
Jack Bauerle
Herbert Behm
Mike Bottom
Bob Bowman
Alex Braunfeld
Michael Brooks
Geoff Brown
Steve Bultman
Augie Busch
Jason Calanog
Carol Capitani
Craig Charley
Cory Chitwood
Marc Christian
Chris Davis
Rick DeMont
Mandy DiSalle
Dave Durden
Jack Fabian
Tyler Fenwick
John Flanagan
Bruce Gemmell
Doug Gjertsen
Brett Hawke
Jim Henry
Jon Howell
Lars Jorgensen
David Kelsheimer
Jeff King
Ted Knapp
Matt Kredich
Kelly Kremer
Jamie Lewis
Ray Looze
Sergio Lopez
Bruce Marchionda
David Marsh
Garrett McCaffrey
Teri McKeever
Greg Meehan
Stephen Miller
Steve Morsilli
Ian Murray
Aaron Opell
John Payne
Chris Plumb
Erik Posegay
Sean Quinn
Eddie Reese
Greg Rhodenbaugh
Bill Rose
David Salo
Logan Schaefer
Todd Schmitz
Jarod Schroeder
Brian Smith
Matt Sprang
Yuri Suguiyama
Gregg Troy
Jason Turcotte
Catherine Vogt
Bill Wadley
Mike Westphal
Josh White
Am I the only one that is not a fan of the criteria to be named “national team coach.” There are teams out there who assign national team athletes to coaches who don’t actually coach the swimmer to have more national team coaches. For instance, Logan Schaefer was Indiana’s student manager/student assistant, and he is on this list. He was assigned as coach of record for one of their national teamers, but what is the likelihood that he was actually the primary coach? He is not even coaching at Indiana anymore.
Being a “national team coach” doesn’t really seem to mean much, so maybe that’s my bigger issue. Couldn’t we use an honor like that as a way to… Read more »
Both Ray Looze and Logan Schaefer are listed as two of Cody miller’s coaches because the two coached him to more of an extent than other coaches on staff. Both coaches were breastroke and mid-D coaches. There were also countless times when Coach Logan was the sole coach of breastroke group. While you are entitled to your opinion of selection matters, do not assume someone is undeserving when you have no idea what impact the coach had on a swimmer qualifying for the USNT.
Logan was a breastroke coach like Kyle Hastings was the next big thing in sprinting…smoke and mirrors.
Why didn’t Cody Miller follow Logan to the small club team he’s coaching at now? It’s kind of a bad time for an Olympic hopeful to lose his primary coach.
The response from “NOT A SKEPTIC” truly illustrates my frustration with the system for selecting national team coaches, and that’s all I was using the example for in the first place. I don’t care how IU organizes their coaching duties. I’m frustrated that coaches who spend a little time coaching one great swimmer can be named “NATIONAL TEAM COACH.” Good for Logan if he is spending the second most time coaching Cody Miller. Being granted that honor by the IU staff is great for a student manager, but being trusted to run an elite swimmer through a workout every now and then doesn’t make him one of the country’s elite coaches…..and that is my point. I feel that the title… Read more »
when was the last time Terry was not a USNT coach?
Kevin Coedes
Interesting that Sergio Lopez, the head coach for Singapore Swimming, is also a USA Swimming national coach.
Nearly all are men. Not much diversity on that list. Thoughts?
Pretty simple, of all candidates for national team coach positions nearly all who met the criteria were men.
The criteria to be a national team coach (per the link provided in the article) is:
National Team Coach: The coach of record and primary coach (if different) for the athlete who is named to the national team roster or international team roster at the time of the swim by the athlete.
We ought ask them all which gender they identify with before we decide the list is unbalanced.
Gina, your comment is not necessary.