Marshall’s Ian Walsh Named Headvert Swimming Coach At Pitt

The subsequent piece of the puzzle for the restructured Pitt swimming and diving program has been put in place.

Newly minted Director of Swimming and Diving Katie Kasprzak introduced Ian Walsh as this system’s new head swimming coach on Monday, becoming a member of the Panthers after a long term main the Marshall swim and dive staff.

Walsh’s hiring comes lower than three weeks after Kasprzak was named Pitt’s new Director of Swimming & Diving, taking up the “direction, culture and success” of this system following the resignation of head coach Chase Kreitler in April.

Kreitler resigned after Pitt Athletics knowledgeable him that “the department intends to move in a different strategic direction after the 2026–2027 season,” and regardless of being supplied to educate yet one more yr, he felt it was in his greatest curiosity to maneuver on.

Kasprzak beforehand served because the staff’s diving coach, however in her new function as Director of this system, her first order of enterprise was to rent a brand new swimming coach and a brand new diving coach, and now a type of containers has been ticked.

Walsh joins the Panthers after spending eight years main the Marshall University swim & dive staff.

“After carefully evaluating what our program, current student-athletes and future recruits need, it became clear that Ian is exactly the right person for this role,” Kasprzak mentioned. “As a sitting head coach, he brings a wealth of expertise from main applications within the American Conference to teaching at a Power 4 establishment that completed second on the NCAA Championships.

“His observe document contains teaching NCAA champions and athletes at each stage of the game, from membership swimmers to the U.S. National Team. What stood out most all through this course of was not solely his success within the pool, however his dedication to tradition, management and accountability. Ian believes in growing nice individuals first, and collectively we’ll create an surroundings the place athletes are challenged, supported and held to the best requirements as each opponents and people.

“What he accomplished at Marshall speaks for itself, but the grace, professionalism and integrity he demonstrated through adversity were equally impressive. Ian knows how to make athletes faster because he has done it at the highest levels of our sport. More importantly, he knows how to lead with character, purpose and integrity. We could not be more excited to welcome Ian, Sarah and their family to the Pitt family.”

During his eight-year tenure at Marshall, Walsh’s groups mixed to interrupt 21 faculty data and 17 swimmers had been topped particular person convention champions. His squads additionally thrived within the classroom, as this system earned CSCAA Scholar All-American standing each semester since his arrival in 2018, together with a 3.78 staff GPA in fall 2025 that ranked seventh amongst all Division I swimming and diving applications nationally.

Walsh guided the Thundering Herd by way of three convention transitions, starting within the Missouri Valley Conference earlier than transferring to the Sun Belt Conference after which this previous season, within the American Conference.

“I would like to thank Director of Swimming & Diving Katie Kasprzak, Associate AD Blaire Ford and Athletic Director Allen Greene for their guidance through this process,” Walsh mentioned. “From the primary dialog, it was clear they needed to create the very best mannequin to assist excessive efficiency for his or her student-athletes, and the shared imaginative and prescient of this new construction will foster an surroundings the place they are often their greatest within the pool, the classroom and inside the Pittsburgh neighborhood.

“The University of Pittsburgh is an institution where you can balance elite academics and elite athletics. It is something the student-athletes here desire, and the program has shown it can be done through its rise in the ACC and NCAA ranks. I look forward to building upon the championship legacy of Pitt Swimming and Diving while recruiting men and women who want to be part of a championship culture here in Pittsburgh. Hail to Pitt.”

Among the swimmers who’ve carried out nicely underneath Walsh lately, Lauren McNamara turned Marshall’s first American convention champion within the ladies’s 200 fly final season, whereas in 2025, Kseniia Luniushina earned Sun Belt Swimmer of the Meet honors whereas setting convention, meet and college data within the ladies’s 100 backstroke.

“What an honor and privilege it has been to lead this program and be part of this amazing community,” Walsh mentioned in a Marshall launch printed Monday saying his resignation. “Our family has created so many wonderful memories we will carry for the rest of our lives. I am grateful for Marshall’s administration taking the chance on a young assistant coach nine years ago. What a journey it has been! I have appreciated all the support from the Marshall leadership over the years.”

Marshall Director of Athletics Gerald Harrison mentioned a nationwide search will start instantly to search out Walsh’s alternative.

Prior to Marshall, Walsh spent one season on workers as an assistant on the University of Buffalo, throughout which this system recorded its highest-ever end on the Mid-American Conference Championships and produced two convention titles whereas the swim and dive squad led the athletic division in staff GPA in each semesters.

He additionally spent one season at Cal, the place former head coach Kreitler was previous to becoming a member of Pitt, working as an assistant underneath ladies’s head coach Teri McKeever in 2016-17. The Golden Bears positioned 2nd on the NCAA Championships that yr and produced 4 particular person and two relay nationwide titles.

Walsh’s school teaching profession started at Bloomsburg University (Division II) as a graduate assistant, and he adopted up by spending one yr as an assistant at Albright College (Division III), main the lads’s and ladies’s applications to the 2013 Middle Atlantic Conference titles.

Walsh’s hiring with the Panthers marks a return to Pittsburgh, having spent his collegiate athletic profession at Duquesne University, the place he set faculty data within the males’s 100 and 200 breaststroke and swam on two record-setting medley relay groups. He additionally gained the Atlantic 10 title within the 100 breast in 2009.

Last season, Pitt positioned sixteenth on the Women’s NCAA Championships, their highest end ever, and the lads positioned twentieth, their greatest exhibiting since 1953. At the ACC Championships, the Panther ladies positioned sixth and the lads had been eleventh.

Since the conclusion of the 2025-26 marketing campaign, Pitt has misplaced a lot of its prime swimmers to transfers, together with their solely particular person NCAA scorers who had been scheduled to return subsequent season, Julian Koch (Tennessee) and Sydney Gring (NC State).

“State-related” colleges in Pennsylvania, together with the University of Pittsburgh, are largely exempt from the state’s Right-to-Know Law, despite the fact that they obtain public funding, that means they don’t have to reveal athletics teaching salaries like in most states.