St. Bonaventure University head coach Skip Nitardy has been fired from his job, and former assistant John Sirmon has been named the interim head coach, student-athletes were informed this week.
Athletes were told on Wednesday that Nitardy was fired because of “allegations,” but no further details were given.
When St. Bonaventure first released its 2022-2023 schedule last week, Nitardy’s name was included in the opening sentence. The school has since stripped his name from that release, which gives some idea of the timeline on the move. Nitardy has been removed from the school’s staff listings as well.
The school did not respond to a request for comment, and SwimSwam was unable to get in contact with Nitardy.
Nitardy was hired in 2018 to lead a newly-combined men’s and women’s swimming & diving program. In the most recent season of college swimming, which was Nitardy’s fourth, the women’s team finished 8th out of 11 at the Atlantic 10 Championships. They were 8th out of 10 in 2021, 6th out of 11 in 2020, and 9th out of 11 in 2019. All of those finishes are lower than the 5th place the team earned at the 2018 championships, the last under former head coach Brian Thomas.
The men’s team has generally had more success in Nitardy’s tenure. They finished 3rd out of 8 teams at the 2022 championships. 5th out of 7 in 2021, 3rd out of 8 in 2020, and 3rd out of 8 in 2019.
Prior to St. Bonaventure, Nitardy spent 2 seasons as the head coach at Maine. He resigned from that program in October 2009, just weeks before the start of the season.
After Maine, Nitardy worked as the Twin Rivers YMCA (New Bern, NC) Aquatics Director. There he qualified five swimmers for YMCA Nationals. Since 2014, he has been the Athletics Director at The Epiphany School of Global Studies, also located in New Bern.
Sirmon, the interim head coach, was hired last month as the program’s new diving coach. He came from Tulane, where he spent the last 3 seasons. The program previously had one assistant swim coach, Hayley Tasselmyer, who was hired in January 2022 – midseason. She is no longer listed on the school’s coaching staff, though it is unclear whether her departure happened before or after Nitard’s firing.
Skip had beyond inappropriate misconduct with a female athlete at Maine, Bonaventure knew about it and there is somebody else in that athletic department that should have been fired years ago but for some reason still has a job hiring these awful people. Such a sad reality for a school with great morals.
He should never have been hired by St Bonaventure in the first place-Glad to see him go, how they could have hired him with in light of his conduct in Maine is beyond me. I can’t believe they kept him this long!
I heard he is gonna be the next head coach of Cal…
No you didn’t.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/2009/10/07/sports/umaine-swim-coach-nitardy-resigns-as-teamsamprsquo-openers-near/
Bonaventure knew about this when they hired him.
?? not sure of your point here, that is the most vague and poorly written article i’ve ever seen.
They, in fact, were aware. Not because of that article, but from other points of contact.
Gotta imagine you did some serious/shady stuff to get axed from this place. Can’t imagine swimswam will even do a “who’s a likely candidate for this one”
what’s so bad with the Bonnies?
Nothing is wrong with The Bonnies-but this coach was a disappointing choice from the beginning- I hope this is the end of his coaching and being around female swimmers. He needs a different profession away from athletes.
I’ll bite, what did he do to get fired?
conduct unbecoming of a coach with a female athlete
Hayley’s departure was prior to Skip’s dismissal.