NAIA school Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina has hired Logan Simpson as the school’s new head swimming coach and aquatics director. He replaces Turk Dogruyol, who served as head coach for one season.
Simpson takes over the job after serving as the head coach of the nearby Carolina Aquatics since 2018. During his time at Carolina Aquatics, the team improved from 11th place to 5th place at the South Carolina LSC Championship meet. The team also had a best finish of 15th at Sectionals.
Simpson had several previous roles at Columbia Aquatics, including as head age group coach. He also served for a year as a volunteer assistant at the University of South Carolina, which is also located in Columbia.
Prior stops include a season as an assistant coach at Division III school Wabash College, and also briefly served as interim head coach of the program.
He swam for a short time at Gardner-Webb University where his father Mike was the head coach and graduated in 2012 with a degree in English. It was there where he took his first steps into a career in collegiate athletics. His first collegiate coaching job was actually as Director of Basketball Operations for his alma mater’s women’s basketball team after spending a season as a manager and a practice squad player.
Mike Simpson, his dad, is currently an assistant coach at South Carolina.
At the 2020 NAIA National Championship meet, Columbia College didn’t score, but they did send 5 relays and 1 individual qualifier: rising senior Tabitha Simonson, who finished 28th in the 400 IM. The Koalas placed 5th out of 7 teams at the Appalachian Athletic Conference Championships.
Congratulations Logan. The future of the program Will be exciting to follow with you at the helm. Best of luck
Congrats Logan! A great coach and even better guy!