Virginia Tech Hires Payton Brooks as New Assistant; Reorganizes Swimming Staff

Virginia Tech announced several changes to its swimming & diving coaching staff this week, including the addition of Payton Brooks as a new assistant.

Brooks’ most recent collegiate coaching position was as the head coach at Division II Alderson-Broaddus University in Philippi, West Virginia. He’s crossed paths with Virginia Tech head coach Sergio Lopez several times of his career: he was on the team at West Virginia when Lopez coached them to a Big East Championship in 2007, and was a 5-time all-Big East swimmer there.

He then served as an assistant coach at The Bolles School from 2012-2015, which included time where big names like Olympic gold medalists Joseph Schooling and Ryan Murphy were members of the team. Lopez was the head coach at Bolles from 2007 through 2014.

“I am truly excited that Payton Brooks has agreed to become one of our coaches with the Virginia Tech Swimming and Diving Team,” said Lopez Miro. “I had the privilege to recruit, and coach Payton at West Virginia University where he helped the team to win the program’s first Big East Championship title and also, later on, was one of the coaches at The Bolles School that helped me build a consistent national champion team.”

Brooks was at Alderson-Broaddus from January through August of 2015, and has worked at the Plant Swim Foundation, and in a couple of non-swimming jobs, in the time since.

In Sergio Lopez‘s first season as head coach last year, the Virginia Tech women finished 8th out of 12 teams at the ACC Championships, while the Virginia Tech men were 4th out of 12 teams. The Virginia Tech men won the ACC title in 2014.

In addition to Brooks’ hiring, 3 other members of the coaching staff received new titles. Steve Steketee was promoted to associate head coach, Jacy Dyer was named the women’s recruiting coordinator in addition to her coaching duties, while Albert Subirats has been named men’s recruiting coordinator and assistant coach.

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VIc
4 years ago

How is the program going?

VforVen
4 years ago

Yawn……

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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