Mount St. Mary’s Adds Hall of Famer Lynn Kachmarik to Staff for Inaugural Season

Lynn & Alyssa
Mount St. Mary's water polo coach Alyssa Diacono, left, and volunteer assistant Lynn Kachmarik; Photo Courtesy: Mount St. Mary's Athletics

Mount St. Mary’s announced Tuesday that Hall of Fame coach Lynn Kachmarik will join the coaching staff as a volunteer assistant for the water polo program’s inaugural seasons.

Kachmarik is a legend in the water polo community and the first woman to be inducted to the College Water Polo Hall of Fame. She’s seen as a pioneer for women in the sport.

Kachmarik was an All-American player (and swimmer) at Slippery Rock University. The first member of the national team from outside California, she spent 12 years with the national team, appearing in the 1980, 1984 and 1988 World Championships. She was a team captain for six years, served as a coach and later was a member of the executive committee for the delegation to the 1993 Worlds. She won a gold medal in the 30-and-over division of the 2007 Aquatics World Championships hosted by Stanford University.

Her career outside the pool is just as illustrious. She spent 18 years, starting in 1981, at Bucknell University, starting as a coach for the women’s swimming and diving team. She would eventually coach the men’s water polo team, the first woman to coach a men’s sports team in Division I. The inductee to the Bucknell Athletic Hall of Fame would also become head coach for the women’s team and be named the university’s director of aquatics.

Her other positions included director of athletics at Division III Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana, and as vice president and general manager for the South Bend Silver Hawks minor league baseball club.

Kachmarik has been inducted to the Collegiate Water Polo Hall of Fame, the United States Water Polo Hall of Fame, the Slippery Rock Athletic Hall of Fame and the Bucks County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Athletic Hall of Fame. She was recognized as the winner for water polo in the 25th Annual Paragon Awards, presented by the International Swimming Hall of Fame announced last April.

Lynn Kachmarik joins the staff of Alyssa Diacono, who was named in March to lead the nascent men’s and women’s water polo programs for the Mount, which announced the founding of the programs in January. The launch of the program has been delayed by fall events being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they could get in the water as soon as January, with the women’s season to proceed in the spring.

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