Bonnies Swim & Dive Completes Coaching Staff For 2026-27 Season

By: Scott Eddy, Assistant Athletics Director for Strategic Communications

ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. – Bonnies males’s and girls’s swim and dive head coach Alec Kandt has accomplished his teaching employees for the 2026-27 season, saying Colby Clark as assistant coach and Kongrong Li as diving coach.

Clark joins the Bonnies swimming and diving program with 10 years of teaching expertise on the membership, highschool and collegiate ranges.

“I’m very excited to welcome Colby to the St. Bonaventure Swimming and Diving family. Colby comes with an impressive resume and extensive experience at the club and college coaching level,” Kandt stated. “I believe he will make our team stronger because of his energy and perspective.”

He most lately served on employees at Utah Tech for the previous three years, working primarily with mid-distance and distance athletes. While there, he coached swimmers to eight particular person faculty data and a number of finalist finishes on the WAC and MPSF Championships.

Clark started his teaching profession with Cedar Swim Club in 2016 as an assistant coach earlier than changing into the pinnacle males’s swimming coach at Cedar City High School from 2018-2020. He returned to Cedar Swim Club as head coach from 2021-2023, the place he developed 5 swimmers who went on to win a mixed eight particular person state championships at the highschool degree. In 2023, Colby transitioned to collegiate teaching, becoming a member of Utah Tech whereas additionally working with Southern Utah Swimming Association.

The Utah native earned his bachelor’s diploma in political science from Southern Utah University, the place he was named to the Dean’s List every year, and is finishing a grasp’s diploma in Sports Conditioning and Performance. He was additionally a collegiate swimmer at Adams State University in Colorado, the place he competed as a distance swimmer.

Li, who goes by the nickname KR, brings a formidable background to working with Bonnies divers.

The California native most lately labored at James Madison, the place he labored with the 2024 and 2025 Sun Belt Conference ladies’s champions. He was named Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) Diving Coach of the Year in 2023 throughout his tenure at JMU as effectively. Li additionally has prior expertise at Miami (OH), Illinois and time spent with USA Diving.

“I believe KR is a huge asset to this program,” Kandt stated. “His resume speaks for itself, and he clearly brings an immense amount of knowledge to the St Bonaventure swimming and diving team. We are very excited to have him as the leader of our dive program.”

Li spent 13 years at Miami (OH) as the pinnacle diving coach for each the boys’s and girls’s packages. During his time in Ohio, the RedHawks noticed particular person success at each the nationwide and convention degree. At the nationwide degree, Miami (OH) had seven All-American alternatives and three second place finishes on the NCAA National Championships. His divers additionally gained 10 MAC Diver of the Year awards and he was named the MAC Diving Coach of the Year in 4 separate seasons.

He has logged practically three a long time of worldwide teaching expertise. He labored as USA Diving Junior Head Coach marketing consultant, assigning coaches with coaching plans and packages, and was the assistant staff chief for Team USA on the 2014 FINA Diving World Cup and staff chief in 2018.

His worldwide teaching work additionally contains serving as co-head coach of the US Elite Diving Academy from 2001-07 and head coach of Team USA on the 2004 Junior World Championships. Before working with Team USA, he spent six years (1996-2001) because the diving coach at Australia Institute of Sports, the nation’s elite diving program. While working at AIS, he coached seven Olympians together with Matthew Mitcham who gained gold on the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

 

Li’s teaching profession started with the Nanning Diving Team in Guanxi, China the place he served as the pinnacle coach from 1990-95.

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