The College of Virginia is the newest program to broaden its swimming & diving teaching employees amid the brand new NCAA guidelines permitting co-ed groups two additional paid teaching slots.
The Cavaliers have introduced the hiring of two faces that can be acquainted to regional swimming circles: John Carroll from UNC Wilmington and Joe Bonk from the Wilton Wahoos who’s a former swimmer at NC State and Virginia Tech.
Carroll comes from a UNC Wilmington employees that’s led by NC State head coach Todd DeSorbo’s former NC State colleague Bobby Gunturo. Bonk, in the meantime, swam for NC State whereas DeSorbo was an assistant there. The ACC, greater than every other convention, has created an internet of intra-conference hires, although the consequence has been an general rise in outcomes throughout the league.
Whereas there are a whole lot of teaching employees shakeups nonetheless to come back, with head teaching positions at Northwestern and Kentucky nonetheless open, the Virginia employees underneath head coach Todd DeSorbo at the moment contains affiliate head coaches Tyler Fenwick and Blaire Bachman and assistant coaches Jake Shrum and Courtney Caldwell.
The Virginia girls are the highest collegiate program within the nation and have received the final three NCAA Championships in swimming & diving. The lads’s staff, in the meantime, was 4th eventually 12 months’s ACC Championship meet and positioned fifteenth at NCAAs after the lack of two of their high sprinters, Matt King and Connor Boyle, late within the season.
Bio Courtesy Virginia Athletics:
Carroll spent three seasons with UNC Wilmington earlier than becoming a member of the Cavaliers’ employees for the 2023-24 season. Whereas at UNCW, Carroll and the teaching employees remodeled the Seahawks in his three years with this system. Through the 2022-2023 season, UNCW received the Colonial Athletic Affiliation Championships mixed title for the primary time since 2006.
Carroll’s distance group thrived on the CAA convention meet. The Seahawks got here away with occasion victories on the boys’s and girls’s facet within the 500 Free, 1650 free and 400 IM occasions. The UNCW employees received swimming teaching employees of the 12 months awards on the boys’s and girls’s facet. Either side scored essentially the most factors in staff historical past.
The 2021-2022 season was one other banner season for the Seahawks. Carroll and the Seahawk teaching employees had been honored by the CAA coaches as the boys’s swimming employees of the 12 months because the Seahawks breezed to this system’s first CAA title because the 2014 season.
UNCW mixed to win 16 occasions on the championship meet. Brooke Knisley grew to become the primary Seahawk since Carly Tanner in 2013 to compete on the NCAA championships. Knisely was the CAA champion within the 500 and 1650 Free, setting program data in every occasion. 4 Seahawks earned main honors with Sam O’Brien (500 & 1650 Free CAA champion) and Katie Knorr (400 IM CAA champion) incomes CAA swimming rookie of the 12 months honors.
Earlier than UNCW, Carroll was a graduate assistant coach with at Auburn from 2018-2020. He labored primarily with the mid-distance and distance swimmers. Carroll assisted the employees with all sides of this system. He assisted with two SEC particular person champions, two SEC relay champions and a number of NCAA qualifiers.
Carroll started his collegiate teaching profession as a volunteer assistant at Rowan College in 2016-17. Alongside his time at Rowan, Carroll coached for 2 seasons as an assistant senior coach with the Jersey Wahoos Swim Membership.
Carroll, graduated from the College of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in 2016, the place he earned a level in historical past and a minor in political science. He helped the Retrievers to a few convention championship titles. He served as a staff captain throughout his senior season. Carroll additionally earned a grasp’s diploma in schooling at Auburn in 2020.
Bonk joins Virginia’s employees after spending the 2020-23 seasons with the Wilton Wahoo Nationwide Group. Throughout his tenure he coached Wahoo document holders, Connecticut state document holders, YMCA nationwide finalists and junior nationwide qualifiers.
Previous to his time with Wilton, Bonk was a volunteer assistant for Fairfield in the course of the 2019-20 season. He spent the 2017-18 season because the recruiting coordinator for William Peace College.
Earlier than his time teaching, Bonk was a 2012 and 2016 Olympic Trials Qualifier. He started his school profession at Virginia Tech, the place he swam for 2 years.
He then sat out a 12 months and transferred for his junior and senior seasons of NCAA eligibility and graduated from NC State in 2017. Throughout his time with the Wolfpack, Bonk was a three-time ACC Champion, NCAA relay runner-up and three-time relay All-American as a dash butterflier and freestyler.
He positioned third on the ACC Championships as each a junior and a senior, after a Seventh-place end as a freshman and eighth place end as a sophomore whereas at Virginia Tech.
