Virginia Assistant John Carroll Set To Take Over As Georgetown Head Coach

Georgetown University has chosen Virginia assistant coach John Carroll as the next head coach of its swimming and diving program, sources tell SwimSwam. Caroll takes over from Jack Leavitt, who announced in March he would be leaving the program at the end of the year after nine seasons. Leavitt accepted an athletic director position at Los Angeles’ Campbell Hall Episcopal School. The Georgetown men won their first Big East conference title in 2022 under Leavitt and have won every year since.

Carroll spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach at Virginia, helping guide the Cavalier women to their fourth and fifth-straight NCAA titles, dominating during the regular season and at the ACC Championships along the way.

Carroll also brings mid-major coaching experience to Washington, DC. Before his two-year stint in Charlottesville, Carroll spent three seasons at UNC-Wilmington, helping transform the program into the CAA powerhouse that it is now. The 2021-22 men’s UNCW team won the program’s first CAA title since 2014, earning Carroll and the men’s swimming coaches the staff of the year honors.

UNCW’s transformation reached a new level during the 2022-23 season, as the Seahawks swept the men’s and women’s team titles for the first time since 2006. Each side scored the most points in team history and the UNCW staff, including Carroll, won coaching staff of the year awards for the men’s and women’s team.

Carroll worked primarily with the distance group at UNCW. He coached both men’s and women’s swimmers to individual event victories at the CAA Championships, including Brooke Knisley, who won conference titles in the 500 and 1650 freestyle, as well as becoming the first UNCW swimmer to qualify for the NCAA Championships since 2013.

Before his time at UNCW, Carroll was a graduate assistant coach at Auburn University from 2018-2020, working primarily with the mid-distance and distance swimmers amidst his other responsibilities for the program. Carroll left Auburn with a master’s degree in education. He got his start in the college coaching world as a volunteer assistant at Rowan University in 2016-17 while coaching for two seasons as an assistant senior coach with the Jersey Wahoos.

Carroll swam collegiately at UMBC, graduating in 2016 after contributing to three conference championship titles and serving as team captain during his senior year.

Carroll is the second Virginia assistant to take the helm of a program in the last two seasons. Last year, Blaire Anderson left Charlottesville to take over as Director of Swimming at Texas A&M University and just completed her first season in that role.

Assistant coaches Sam Milligan, Ceallach Gibbons, and Molly Benson, along with diving coach Meg Tomayko are still on staff at Georgetown.