USA Swimming has promoted Erik Posegay to National Junior Team Director and National Coach. He has been serving as the program director of the National Junior Team since March 2022, though USA Swimming says that this is a promotion and a title change.
The promotion comes after a successful meet at the World Junior Championships two weeks ago in Netanya, Israel. While the senior team struggled at the World Championships, the US finished on top of the World Junior Championships in gold medals (15), total medals (33), and won the trophy for Best Team at the meet. Australia was the next-best country at that meet with 9 gold medals and 24 total medals.
“With the promotion comes additional leadership responsibilities beyond leading the operations and development of the National Junior Team, to include contributing to the shaping of the elite coaching credentials,” a USA Swimming spokesperson said.
The news was announced on the same day as USA Swimming announced the 2023-2024 National Junior Team roster.
Prior to joining the staff at USA Swimming, Posegay was an associate head coach at the University of Wisconsin.
Posegay was one of Yuri Sugiyama’s first hires when he arrived in Madison in the spring of 2018 and spent four seasons on staff with the Badgers. Posegay was promoted to associate head coach following last season. Prior to joining Sugiyama’s staff, Posegay was an assistant coach at Penn State for two seasons.
When Posegay took over the job last year, he replaced Mitch Dalton, who was the National Junior Team Director for five years before leaving USA Swimming in the spring of 2020 to become an assistant coach for the University of Texas women’s team, a position he still holds. Dalton was an assistant coach for the Princeton men before joining USA Swimming in 2015.
During his time in Madison, Posegay was best known for his work with the distance and IM group. Among his star pupils included US National Teamer Ally McHugh, who swam at Penn State and then followed Posegay to Madison to train as a pro after qualifying for the 2019 World Championship team, and Paige McKenna, this year’s NCAA 1650 free champion.
In addition to his work on the collegiate level, Posegay also brings extensive club coaching experience, most notably with Maryland-based club North Baltimore Aquatic Club, with him to his new role. Posegay was initially hired as an assistant coach to Bob Bowman, but was promoted to head coach and CEO of NBAC in 2015 after Bowman departed to become the head coach at Arizona State. Posegay also coached at Parkland Aquatic Club in Allentown, Pennsylvania, before joining NBAC.
Posegay also has experience internationally, having served on Team USA coaching staffs at the 2015 Open Water World Championships, the 2013 Dual in the Pool and the 2010 Junior Pan Pacs. He also served as an assistant coach for France at the 2014 European Championships and served as the head coach for North Macedonia at the 2016 Olympic Games.
I agree with others and would love to know what this job even is.
how does the affect Sun Yang’s legacy?
So what does the extended title entail for him? Doesn’t seem clear here what else he is doing. He’s not taking over as National Team Director, and we’ve haven’t seen a title like this in a while, so what is it say “you do here?” Cause from where I sit I’m not sure “a successful meet at the World Junior Championships two weeks ago in Netanya, Israel. While the senior team struggled at the World Championships, the US finished on top of the World Junior Championships in gold medals (15), total medals (33), and won the trophy for Best Team at the meet.” necessitates a promotion or even a raise when someone else was coaching all those successful junior athletes… Read more »
I’d say that the group that “struggled” was USA Swimming’s travel and pre-meet planning group.
Sending the Senior team all the way to Singapore to train and then having them take a six-hour redeye flight to Fukuoka unnecessarily added to the team’s early meet fatigue.
> Worlds too close in calendar days to Nationals/Trials – needed at least another week (maybe two)
> Singapore camp location unduly burdensome for travel
> Redeye flight to Fukuoka another bungle
So amazing! We love posegay! So proud!!
Can we get an explanation of why SwimSwam continues to say “the senior team struggled at worlds”? I get that our medal count was lower than usual, but didn’t the vast majority of American swimmers swim at or above expectations, given their personal bests?
Yeah, struggling is the 2015 performance. This year’s team performed fairly well, they just don’t have a superstar outside Ledecky and the rest of the world continues to get better.
No. An unusually high and unacceptable number were slower than they were at Trials. I think that’s pretty clearly underperforming.