USA Swimming has announced their full coaching staff for the 2012 Olympics in London, England. There aren't many surprises here, though sometimes there's some slicing-and-dicing going on when deciding who is a women's assistant and who is a men's assistant.
Dave Salo, with five American Olympians to his name (Soni, Berens, Shanteau, Hardy and open water swimmer Anderson, though she works a lot with assistant Catherine Vogt), earned a spot on the women's staff, along with Missy Franklin's coach Todd Schmitz and Steve Bultman, who we discussed at length earlier.
The men's staff will include David Marsh on his third American staff, and first since 2000. He is sending 5 swimmers to the meet, punctuated by Kara Lynn Joyce on the final day of the meet. He'll also take Nick Thoman, Davis Tarwater, Cullen Jones, and Micah Lawrence. In a very short time, he's turned around the careers of many of those swimmers, and includes a resurgent Cullen Jones that won the men's 50 freestyle (the only of the 5 to win an event).
Eddie Reese will join Marsh on that staff, in a redux of a huge rival they had while Marsh was at Auburn and Reese was in his current position at Texas. Reese's squad didn't have quite the level of unbelievable achievement that he's maybe used to at this meet, but he did put three on the team in Jimmy Feigen, Brendan Hansen, and what is believed to be his first female Olympian Kathleen Hersey.
Bob Bowman will go as the coach of Michael Phelps, but he also trains one of the leading medal-contenders on the women's side in Allison Schmitt.
Jon Urbanchek, Tyler Clary's coach at FAST in Fullerton, will go as a “special assistant,” and SMU associate men's head coach Andy Kershaw will be the head manager. Kershaw will be assisted by Jeri Mashburn from Irvine NOVAquatics, who is on the LSC board in Southern California.
Shannon Gillespy, a former member of the USA Swimming Board of Directors, will assist Tim Murphy who is Alex Meyer's head open water coach.
Teri McKeever, Cal – head women's coach
Gregg Troy, Florida – head men's coach
Tim Murphy, Harvard – open water head coach
Dave Salo, USC – assistant women's coach
Todd Schmitz, Colorado Stars – assistant women's coach
Steve Bultman, Texas A&M – assistant women's coach
Bob Bowman, NBAC – assistant men's coach
David Marsh, SwimMAC – assistant men's coach
Eddie Reese, Texas – assistant men's coach
Jon Urbanchek, FAST – special assistant
Andy Kershaw – head manager
Jeri Mashburn – assistant manager
Shannon Gilespy – OW manager