Bob Bowman Becomes First Men’s Coach to Win Consecutive National Titles at Different Schools
For the second consecutive season, Bob Bowman has guided a men’s swimming team to a national championship. That achievement is by no means unprecedented — his predecessor at the University of Texas, Eddie Reese, had two four-peats and a three-peat during his time with the program — but no coach had ever brought different teams to the sport’s summit in successive years.
Bowman had a chance to claim this place in the sport’s history when he departed Arizona State two days after leaving that program to its first-ever national title. Bowman relocated to Austin and brought along Hubert Kos, who was the only swimmer to win three individual events at this year’s national championships. However, Bowman worked with a wholly different staff and new batch of swimmers to assemble this year’s title-winning contingent.
One main reason that no coach had ever won men’s national titles in successive years is that championship-level swim coaches rarely move between programs. In fact, Bowman is the rare coach to have led three separate power-conference programs, with a four-year stint at Michigan before his time at Arizona State and then at Texas.
The only other swim coach to ever win back-to-back titles at different schools was a women’s coach, Richard Quick. Five consecutive national titles at Texas from 1984 through 1988 were followed by a win in Quick’s first season at Stanford. Quick ended up winning seven total titles at Stanford and then a men’s title in 2009 at Auburn. Mark Schubert, who succeeded Quick coaching the women’s team at Texas, is the only other coach to ever win multiple titles at different schools, topping the points table with both the Longhorns and USC.
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