Pitt Names Walsh Headvert Swimming Coach

PITTSBURGH – Ian Walsh has been named the University of Pittsburgh’s head swimming coach, Director of Swimming & Diving Katie Kasprzak introduced at this time. Walsh joins Pitt after spending the final eight seasons as Marshall’s head swimming and diving coach.

“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 stated. “As a sitting head coach, he brings a wealth of expertise from main packages within the American Conference to teaching at a Power 4 establishment that completed second on the NCAA Championships. His monitor report contains teaching NCAA champions and athletes at each degree 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 are going to create an surroundings the place athletes are challenged, supported and held to the very best requirements as each rivals 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.”

Walsh joins Pitt as a part of the brand new management mannequin underneath Kasprzak, during which devoted head coaches lead every self-discipline whereas working underneath a unified program imaginative and prescient. In this construction, he’ll work carefully with Kasprzak and Pitt’s head diving coach, with every chief targeted on growing their student-athletes inside a cohesive and purposeful staff surroundings.

As head swimming coach, Walsh will carry full duty for the route and efficiency of Pitt’s males’s and girls’s swimming program, overseeing all features of athlete improvement, coaching, competitors preparation and recruiting.

“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 stated. “From the first conversation, it was clear they wanted to create the best model to support high performance for their student-athletes, and the shared vision of this new structure will foster an environment where they can be their best in the pool, the classroom and within the Pittsburgh community. 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.”

During eight seasons at Marshall, Walsh oversaw sustained success each within the pool and within the classroom. Under his route, this system compiled 243 all-time top-10 performances, 76 particular person podium finishes, 21 faculty information and 17 particular person convention champions. The program 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 packages nationally.

Walsh guided Marshall by means of three convention transitions and produced championship leads to every league. In the Herd’s first season within the American Conference in 2025-26, Lauren McNamara turned Marshall’s first American Conference particular person champion, successful the 200 butterfly and incomes choice to Team USA for the 2026 FISU America Games. During Marshall’s ultimate Sun Belt Conference season in 2024-25, Kseniia Luniushina earned Sun Belt Swimmer of the Meet honors whereas setting faculty, meet and convention information within the 100 backstroke. Earlier, in Marshall’s inaugural Missouri Valley Conference marketing campaign in 2022-23, Eszter Laban turned this system’s first MVC particular person champion by successful the 1650 freestyle.

Walsh started his teaching profession as a graduate assistant at Bloomsburg University earlier than spending one 12 months as head assistant at Albright College, the place he helped the lads’s and girls’s packages mix for 13 faculty information and 19 particular person or relay convention championships, with each groups capturing the 2013 Middle Atlantic Conference title. Walsh then joined the employees at Buffalo for the 2017-18 season, the place this system posted its highest end on the Mid-American Conference Championships, led the athletic division in staff GPA in each semesters, and produced two convention titles and 6 All-MAC honorees.

Walsh additionally spent a season at California, serving to information the Golden Bears to a second-place end on the NCAA Championships behind 4 particular person nationwide champions and two relay nationwide champions, and was named to the 2017-18 USA National Team teaching employees.

Walsh returns to town of Pittsburgh after a stellar profession at Duquesne University, the place he set faculty information within the 100 and 200 breaststroke and swam on two record-setting medley relay groups. He received the Atlantic 10 title within the 100 breaststroke in 2009. He will likely be joined by his spouse Sarah and 4 kids Ella, Noah, Evelyn and Eli.