The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that TCU head coach Sam Busch has resigned after 6 months leading the program. Busch was placed on administrative leave 2 weeks ago while the athletic department “conducted an internal inquiry into program rules, policy and procedure violations.”
The school has not confirmed the exact reason for the investigation, but on Friday the school’s athletic director Jeremiah Donati did send a statement to the paper. “Coach Busch cooperated with our internal inquiry,” Donati said in the release. “After reviewing the facts with us, he decided to resign. I have accepted his resignation, and we wish him the best in his future coaching endeavors.”
Assistant coach Keith Dawley has been appointed to lead the team to the Big 12 Championships that begin this Wednesday in Austin. The Horned Frogs currently have 12 swims that meet NCAA Championship “B” qualifying standards, though all will need to be improved to earn invites. Among the swimmers on that list, freshman Joao Andrade has two, with a 1:37.35 in the 200 free and a 4:22.37 in the 500 free; as does Elise Forzley, who has “B” standards in the 200 back (1:56.96) and 200 IM (2:00.73).
Busch was in his first season as a head coach in the NCAA. The son of longtime USA Swimming National Team Director Frank Busch, Sam Busch got his start coaching with his father at Arizona from 2007 to 2009. He later had assistant coaching stops at West Virginia and Auburn before joining the staff of his older brother Augie Busch in Virginia. That partnership went separate ways this offseason when Augie Busch jumped to Tucson to take the head coaching opening at the University of Arizona and Sam Busch accepted the head coaching job at TCU. Busch replaced Richard Sybesma, who retired after 38 seasons leading TCU last season.
Ha the fact that Sam even got hired in the first place is so ridiculous, it’s laughable. I was on Ford when he was a “coach,” AKA he had like two swimmers, including Emma what’s her name and Courtney Rody, both Salpointe swimmers. I believe Sam was a coach at Salpointe as well? Never the less, I grew up around all over the coaches- Frank, Augie, and Sam. Frank is, without a doubt, one of the best coaches of all time. His presence alone was enough to motivate. Augie has some good points. Sam doesn’t know what the hell hes doing. I remember once when I wasn’t feeling well I was switched into the short course group for the day.… Read more »
Haaaaa the
Old post, but does anyone know if TCU filled this position? Would think the job would bring some strong interest from mid major coaches and associate head coaches at bigger programs.
They have not announced any replacement yet.
Thanks. Other than what has been posted in this thread, in your opinion are there any other coaches that make sense for TCU? Sense this program could really explode with the right leader. Facility upgrades are needed, but I would think that can be addressed at this school.
The apology doesn’t need to come from the TCU Athletic Department as some in this thread are suggesting. The guy that did this is already out of the building. Sam’s hire was already pretty much in place at the TCU luxury box at the College World Series in June when Big Daddy Frank was a guest of Chris Del Conte, the then TCU Athletic Director and good friend from their days when Del Conte was AD at Univ. of Arizona. This was pure and utter nepotism, but honestly Del Conte was considered almost god-like on that campus until he bolted for UT, so no one was going to dare cross him and even hint that the hire was not both… Read more »
” So he will dive deep and let this settle and in a year or two will surface someplace else when we have all forgotten about this.”
….then a POX on the athletic department that does not do even a cursory professional background vetting, before taking a Sam Busch resume for their vacancy with any seriousness. Even long past our short memories purging thoughts of this situation, a quick Google of the name “Sam Busch” will surely bring up these SwimSwam articles (& accompanying comment sections) for anyone interested to read. One would hope that minimally SB would be called on to clarify the “missing pieces” to these stories.
If so, with all the extremely well qualified college swim coaching… Read more »
Maybe the fact that he signed with TYR the day he got suspended has something to do with why.
IMHO….TCU should open up the checkbook and lure away another top head coach looking for a new challenge or a step up. This is a Big12 school awash with football money – they should be able to attract someone with several years of successful head coaching experience. Sure, the facility isn’t the greatest, but with some success and the depth of TCU donors, a new facility is not impossible.
Possibles:
Brian Peresie
Ryan Wochomurka
Dave Rollins
Phil Davis
Brendan Hansen (why not?)
Dane Pedersen
If I were the TCU AD my first call would be to Houston and Wochomurka. I would offer him until he accepted, and would pay him 350 if that’s what it took.
Wochomurka won’t leave Houston, he’s stated time and time again to recruits and donors that he wants to take UH to the next level
“Yeah, I’ma be outta here in a season or two, but would appreciate you writing a nice check in the meantime.” – said no coach ever.
Unless Tillman is opening his checkbook for the swim program (unlikely), he’ll leave for the right money. Though, $90,000 to just coach the women – that’s not a bad take for a mid-major swim coach.
Agree with DutchWomen’s original post in this thread. Overall a great list of potential coaches in this full thread. All appear to be good/great mid major coaches with experience as a head coach. Having associate head coaching experience at a Power 5 school with a women’s and men’s team would check all the boxes. Wochamurka (Houston/Louisville) would be my first call then Rollins (Florida Gulf Coast/Ohio State).
There are a lot of great successful mid major coaches out there who could do something at TCU:
Matt Barany – Richmond
Dave Collins – Missouri State
Steve Fletcher – Rider
Randy Horner – Florida International
Seth Huston – Rice
James Winchester – George Washington
All coaches that know how to win, and get kids to NCAAs as mid major schools.
Dave Collins is a no brainer hire. If the AD does any homework this time around then Dave will be a finalist.
Great call. His Men’s and Womens teams won championship this year. Will be surprised if TCU doesn’t get it right this time. The sports culture at TCU is all first class. .
Not sure why this received 14 down votes lol…Brian Peresie is a winner. Ryan – winner. Dane Pederson just won the CAA at JMU. Either of these guys would do wonders at TCU. Heck their women’s programs at their current schools would destroy TCU women. It would be a step up for them in conference and prestige but a step down as far as athletic ability…these guys are coaching up women MUCH faster than the current TCU squad…TCU would be in good hands with either of these guys – their current programs are already head and shoulders above TCU…No disrespect to the Horned Frogs.
I went to vote your original comment up, and it took away a down vote, and then added my up vote. This was the first time I came across your post too, I never voted it down. Maybe there’s others this happened to, because you make some good points! Hopefully TCU can find an adequate replacement, it’s awful to see any program get taken advantage of or mismanaged in any way. Only hurts the swimmers!
What about Dan Schnell from Hawaii?
TCU administration needs to reexamine its parameters for Head Coach position. They also need to personally apologize to the student-athletes who just spent 6 months with an unqualified coach. How terribly sad that a more cursory study of Busch’s past was not conducted when searching for a coach to succeed Sybesma.
This whole thing of the Busch’s leaving worked out well for…UVA!
Thanks for pointing that out because like all things it’s about UVA. Very unfortunate situation for the 50+ student athletes at TCU, but hey let’s make sure we all know things are better for UVA.
When you have inappropriate relationships with your swimmers that’s what happens…. Just because your dad is the great Frank Busch does not warrant you to be a head coach… Sam was not a swimmer.. lacks the proper knowledge … just an immature decision… I hope that tcu makes a better decision when hiring a new head coach. I feel real bad for those swimmers on the team…. they need direction and a great leader…
He did not have any inappropriate relationships with his swimmers, they made that very clear. He was violating compliance issues that could not be overlooked.
I strongly suggest and hope that, unless you know for a true fact that he had an innapropraite relationship, you aren’t spreading false assumptions.
Regardless of what the reasoning is, and I have a feeling we will never find out for sure based on confidentiality agreements, it shows a lack of judgment on the part of the TCU athletic department to hire someone based on their last name, and that is 100% why this hiring was made. Legacy hirings are always a crap shoot, and this time it didn’t work out in TCU’s favor.
If these two Frog-related accounts aren’t posting from the same IP address (prolly in Fort Worth) I’ll eat my hat.
(I do not wear hats.)
You are wrong, this was an inappropriate…..