DOLFIN SWIMWEAR - Key Persons
One of Bud's greatest claim to fame was helping to guide Janet Evans to the top of the swimming world. Additional accolades are:
American Swimming Coaches Association Hall of Fame
American Swimming Coaches Association Coach of the Year
Canadian Coach of the Year
Wales Elite Coach of the year
His swimmers have also won 5 Olympic and numerous World, Pan-American, Pan-Pacific, Goodwill, Paralympic, Commonwealth, and European Championships medals
His swimmers have also broken 6 World and numerous Olympic, American, Japanese, Canadian, British, European, and Commonwealth national records
Bud is currently the head coach of the Western Institute of Sport (WAIS), Perth Northern Suburbs High Performance Centre.
Coach Doug Fonder's roots in coaching run deep. As a youngster, he worked as a ball boy for the Green Bay Packers during the iconic Vince Lombardi Era. Although he didn't realize it at the time, the chance to observe one of the greatest coaches in history had a lasting impact on him. Fonder recalls, "Just the fact that I had the opportunity to be around a person like Vince Lombardi and learn what he did first-hand. I think it had a lot to do with the future of what I do in coaching."
Fonder went on to play football at the University of Miami in Coral Gables where his career was cut short by an injury during his junior year. As fate would have it, he was offered a job managing a pool and coaching swimming. He had never coached before, but the challenge and opportunity to work with young athletes immediately had him hooked. Fonder has been coaching ever since-a total of 45 years!
Coach Fonder founded his first team, the Quantico Devil Dolphins in 1972. He went on to purchase the Briarwood Swim and Racquet club out of bankruptcy in 1979. Fonder worked to turn it into one of the most successful tennis and swim facilities in Virginia. In 1988, he moved to Roanoke to work as the Executive Director of Sports and ended up starting his own swim team, the Virginia Gators. Fonder explained, "My own kids were swimmers and there really wasn't much swimming going on, so I started a program and rented facilities." In 1991, he formed a non-profit corporation and built his own pool. The team has grown to great success, with over 400 swimmers and three additional sites in Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, Lynchburg. Currently, the team has four swimmers qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials, including Fonder's son, Khalil. In March, the Gators swept all the victories at the Dolfin Junior Nationals Cup: women's, men's and overall.
In 2010, Coach Fonder worked with coaches all over the country to found the National Age Group Association (NASA) to offer unique meet opportunities and support young swimmers. Fonder says, "We believe the development of the swimmers should be more documented and researched to see what makes a great senior swimmer. So we formed this group with a lot of club coaches who have worked in this process for years." In 2011, Fonder created the International Swim Coaches Association (ISCA) to further develop age group coaches. ISCA supports the special job these coaches have in molding solid swimmers. Fonder explains, "A club coach starts with the rock and have to make a diamond. It's a much different process that they have to go through than a college coach."
With 45 years experience as an accomplished swim coach, Coach Fonder has an impressive list of accolades. He's coached swimmers at the last 12 consecutive Olympic Trials, including Olympic medalists Jeff Rouse and Greg Burgess. He's been elected Virginia Coach of the Year ten times and has been awarded YMCA National Swim Coach of the Year twice. Although he's very proud of his swimmers who have gone on to swim in college or the Olympics, Fonder explains that his greatest accomplishment is in helping kids become well-rounded adults. "They have to become successful people in life, and we have a hand in helping them." Despite having almost five decades of experience, Coach Fonder's philosophy is to continue to evolve and learn from others. He believes that a good coach never gets comfortable. Fonder says he's "always trying to see what might be out there to make him better, and I'll do that until I stop coaching."
The Denison swimming & diving program has become synonymous with success at the national level and behind that success over the past 28 years has been head coach Gregg Parini.
Since taking over both Denison programs in the fall of 1987, Parini has gone on to build one of the most consistently successful programs in the history of Division III athletics. Under Parini's watch his teams have captured three national championships, 16 national runner-up finishes in addition to Denison's current streak of 56 consecutive top-10 national finishes.
At the conference level, Parini has coached Denison to 16 conference titles and has earned the North Coast Athletic Conference Coach of the Year award, 16 times. DU has produced over 350 All-Americans that have racked up over 2,000 All-American swims. Twenty-four Denison swimmers and divers have been awarded the prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship and in 2004, former Denison swimmer Darius Grigaliunas swam in the Olympics as a member of the Lithuanian team.
In addition to his success in the coaching ranks, Parini's career as an educator and Associate Professor at Denison has been equally impressive. In May of 2011 he was honored by the Collegiate Swimming Coaches Association of America as the recipient of the National Collegiate and Scholastic Trophy which is the highest award bestowed by the CSCAA. In 2007 he was awarded the Charles A. Brickman Teaching Excellence Award which is given annually to one faculty member who has demonstrated a vibrant interest in the learning process, as well as an understanding of teaching as a continuously evolving art form: someone who embraces the teaching and mentoring of students, not just as a profession, but as a calling.
Jeff Thompson has developed a simple, four-word motto over nearly two decades as a swimming coach: Grit. Resilience. Reliability. Ownership. These simple but powerful words guide Thompson's vision as a swimmer, coach, teacher, and administrator.
Before coming to Germantown Academy in fall 2014, Thompson spent 17 years as a USA Swimming Coach for the Terre Haute Torpedoes (IN) and 15 years as the head coach of the Terre Haute South Vigo High School boys' and girls' swim teams. With the Torpedoes, Thompson helped grow the club from 60 to 300 swimmers of all ages, as well as developed a learn-to-swim program and a Masters' swim team. He has developed and mentored state champions, junior and senior national qualifiers, and sent swimmers to compete successfully at Division I colleges and universities. As the head coach of Vigo High School, Thompson led the team to its first boys' sectional title in February 2010, while the girls' team enjoyed 15 consecutive winning seasons. He also has experience in the planning, financing and building of two new pools in the Terre Haute area.
Thompson earned his Master of Science degree in coaching from Indiana State University and a bachelor's degree in math education from the same school. Thompson, who swam competitively at University of Illinois, Urbana, also earned a bachelor's degree from the school in civil engineering.
In his first year with the GA Varsity program in 2015, Thompson led the girls' team to an Inter-Academic League title, and a fifth consecutive title at the Eastern Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championships.
8 time Olympic Coach Mark Schubert serves as Dolfin's Director of Technical Development. Schubert brings a record that is unsurpassed in the history of competitive swimming which includes the following:
International Swimming Hall of Fame
American Swimming Coaches Association Hall of Fame
8 time Olympic plus numerous World, Pan-Pacific, Pan-American coaching staffs
26 US Olympians plsu numerous internationals
73 National Club and College Team Championships
45 World plus 145 American and numerous international record holders.
Schubert is currently Head Coach and CEO at Golden West Swim Club and Head Coach and Golden West College.
Job Titles:
- Coach
- Coach of the Mens and Womens Swim Teams at the University of Notre Dame
Mike Litzinger is currently the head coach of the mens and womens swim teams at the University of Notre Dame. Previously, Litzinger spent seven years as head coach of both the men's and women's programs at the University of Utah (2000-07) and seven more as head women's coach at St. Bonaventure University (1989-1996). He was the associate head coach at North Carolina from 2011-2015 after first joining the Tar Heel staff in 2007.
Litzinger was named in September 2014 to the list of U.S. National Team. His eight-year women's resume with the Tar Heels featured seven runner-up finishes in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships and top 19 finishes in the NCAA Championships each of the last four seasons-including a best of 12th in 2012-13. During his tenure the Tar Heels produced 33 individual All-Americans and 13 relay units that claimed All-America status.
He began his coaching career at Fredonia State University in New York in 1988-89. While at Fredonia State, Litzinger took the Blue Devils to a second-place SUNYAC Conference finish.
A 1984 graduate of Hobart College in Geneva, New York, Litzinger received his bachelor's degree in English and was captain of the Hobart swimming team in 1983-84. The same year he was voted the program's most valuable swimmer. In 1988, he received his master's degree in physical education from the University of Iowa. While working on his master's degree, Litzinger was the Hawkeyes' graduate assistant men's swimming coach.
Few coaches have ever won a national championship, had a team ranked #1 in the country, or coached swimmers
to Olympic gold. Randy Reese might be the first and only coach to do so at every level.
In addition to the above accomplishments, Coach Reese is one of the most innovative and progressive coaches ever to step on a pool deck. These are a few of the many reasons why Doln Swim (Jade Swimwear, LP) welcomes Coach Reese as a senior member of Dolfin's Advisory Board.
Randy is currently the Director of Aquatics and Head Coach of the Clearwater Aquatic Team. Prior to this he served as head coach at the
Tim Murphy is the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lion men's and women's swimming and diving programs, who partnered with Dolfin in 2015. In his first season at PSU, Murphy led both the men's and women's programs to top-20 finishes at the 2014 NCAA Championships and top-five finishes at the Big Ten Championships, marking one of the most successful seasons in school history for either program.
Murphy was appointed as the head Olympic coach for the men's open water team at the 2012 Olympic Games and serves on the OIOC committee for USA Swimming. He has placed athletes on Olympic, World University, Pan-Pacific and Pan-American teams, including Meyer, who was named the 2011 Fran Crippen Memorial Male Open Water Swimmer of the Year by USA Swimming.
Murphy, who served as an assistant men's coach at the 2009 World University Games in Belgrade, Serbia, also worked as an assistant at the 2001 World University Games in Beijing and at the 1993 World Short Course Championships. He was also a member of the Open Water Staff at the 1998 World Championships in Australia.
Tom Milich is in his 10th season as head coach of the Cal Poly swimming and diving program.
Since 2006-07, Milich has guided the development of swimmers who have broken all 28 school records in individual events (often several times over), as well as relay teams that have established program records at every distance.
He has sent swimmers to the NCAA Championships in five of the past six years, saw two divers advance to the 2014 NCAA Zone E Qualifying Meet and has coached 20 individual conference champions while with the Mustangs.
The program's student-athletes have earned conference all-academic honors 101 times during his tenure (including 13 this past winter). Additionally, among men and women, the team had a 100-percent graduation success rate within the cycle observed from 2006 through 2012, and since 2009-10, the squads have combined to achieve rare perfect annual NCAA Academic Progress Rates (1,000 out of 1,000) eight out of 10 times.
Altogether, Milich is a 12-time recipient of the ASCA Coach of Excellence award, including most recently in December 2010.
For 16 years before he arrived at Cal Poly, Milich served as the Aquatics Director for the Clovis Swim Club. During that time, he coached five swimmers who went on to represent the U.S. in international competition, while seven ultimately competed at the NCAA Championships.
From 1989 to 1992, Milich was the head men's water polo coach at Fresno State. During that time, he was also an NCAA representative for U.S. Water Polo and served on the NCAA regional advisory committee.
In 1988, Milich was an assistant coach for the U.S.' silver medal-winning Olympic men's water polo team. He was also a staff member for the 1991 gold medal-winning World Championships squad and the silver-winning team at the Pan American Games.
Prior to his collegiate and international experience, Milich coached 61 All-Americans at the high school level, including future Olympians Janet Evans, John Moffet and John Mykkanen. During that time, he was honored with the California Swimming Coach of the Year award in 1987 while at El Dorado High School.
Milich graduated from Long Beach State with a degree in biology in 1978, and went on to earn his teaching credential in 1980. He played water polo for the 49ers.
He currently lives in Arroyo Grande with his wife and two daughters.