The University of Hawaii has officially posted its job listing for a head swimming & diving coach, which should finally push the program after the bizarre and secretive departure of former head coach Elliot Ptasnik.
Marcus Guttmann was named the interim head coach of the program last fall after months of reports that Ptasnik was put on a leave of absence. Sources both official and unofficial at the school have been unable to provide answers about what happened with Ptasnik beyond vague reports of an “internal investigation.”
Ptasnik took over the program in summer 2019 when Dan Schemmel was hired away by Stanford to lead the men’s team. He kept the program’s success going, leading both the men’s and women’s team to MPSF conference titles in 2020. For the men, that included a conference-record 895.50 points.
The women won again in 2021, while the men fell to BYU. That extended the women’s title streak to 5.
The team was led in 2021-2022 by Marcus Guttmann, who is another holdover from the Schemmel era. He joined the program prior to the 2016-2017 season. He came to the program from the Badger Aquatics Club in Madison, Wisconsin, from 2013-2016, where he also coached alongside Schemmel.
In Guttmann’s interim year, the Hawaii women finished 2nd, with UCSD snapping the streak by a narrow 12.5 points. The Hawaii men slipped to 3rd place.
This becomes one of at least 8 NCAA Division I head coaching openings, with the season concluding less than a week ago. Other positions that are publicly announced include:
- USC
- Notre Dame
- Utah
- Pitt
- Illinois
- UIC
- VMI
- Holy Cross
At least some of those jobs are expected to create openings at other D1 schools as the coaching carousel begins to rev up into the summer.
I’m looking to get back into coaching diving. Are you still looking for a new coach
Foward to the Ark head coach!
would be cool if y’all made one article with all the openings and a top 3-5 candidates per job.
Yes. This would be great to see where the movements are and openings still not filled
Dr. Freas had the right formula for UH!
Have great memories of training trip there my senior year (1999) and him touring us around the island and discussing swimming.
RIP, DR. SAM!
Anyone who votes down on something like this should be ashamed they are similar to an actual human.
Travel budget for any Hawaii team must be huge
For sure but they are fortunate that many colleges have early Xmas break and some go late into January so that is most of their dual meet season.
I heard that to take a recruiting trip there one has to commit in some way before they will pay one to visit there officially. You can tell the Hawaii athletic department isn’t rolling in money like a SEC school.
At a school like Hawaii you have to do that otherwise sooo many kids would use one of their official visits there just to come party for a weekend then ghost the coach afterwards
People would do that? Hahaha on the flipside they probably could get some swimmers to visit that otherwise wouldn’t be that interested. Its U of H job to close the deal and prequalify those that want to visit.
This “recruiting trip only after commitment” rumor is untrue. It was true for a short time but that ended in 2005.
It is true they are not rolling in money though.