Hall of Fame swim coach Bob Bowman will replace Eddie Reese at Texas
How do you try and replace a legend?
With another legend, apparently.
Texas hired Bob Bowman to replace the recently retired Eddie Reese, university officials announced Monday. He’ll serve in the newly created position of director of swimming and diving while also serving as head men’s coach. His salary was not immediately available.
More: Texas' Eddie Reese announces pending retirement after 46 seasons as men's swim coach
A Hall of Famer who served as the longtime coach of Olympic legend Michael Phelps, Bowman has spent the past nine seasons at Arizona State, which he transformed into a national champion this season for the first time in school history.
“When we went searching for the next head coach of our swimming and diving program, we knew it would be challenging and that we had to find the absolute best to continue our proud tradition as the nation’s premier program,” Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte said in a statement. “We did just that with Bob Bowman, whose efforts building the Arizona State men’s squad into a national champion are truly historic and monumental.”
Working alongside Reese, who served as Team USA’s head coach in 2004 and 2008, as the primary coach for Phelps at the 2004 Olympic Games, Bowman helped Phelps claim eight total medals, including six gold and two bronze. Four years later at the 2008 Games, Phelps won eight Olympic gold medals, a feat that had never been done before in a single Olympiad.
Bowman served as the head men’s coach for Team USA at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Reese retired after an unprecedented 46-year career that includes not only 15 national titles but also 13 runner-up finishes. Starting in his second season at UT in 1978, he won the Southwest and Big 12 conference titles every year, giving him 45 straight championships. He said Bowman will continue the championship legacy of the Texas program
“Bob (Bowman) has had an amazing career at every level – age group, collegiate, national and international,” Reese said in a statement. “And the best part is he just seems to be getting better. Bob is the perfect choice for this job, and I will teach him to hunt and fish, too.”
Carol Capitani, UT’s head women’s coach for the past 12 seasons, says she’s looking forward to working with Bowman, and she expects him to add to the success that became the norm under Reese.
“Eddie couldn’t have been a better partner, mentor and friend these past 12 years at the University of Texas,” she said in a statement. “That said, this will be an exciting new chapter with Bob. His years of experience and expertise in our craft are huge assets, and I’m looking forward to sharing the deck with another legend, continuing the programs’ tradition of swimming and diving excellence.”
A 2010 inductee into the American Swimming Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Bowman is a five-time ASCA Coach of the Year and is the most-honored coach in the 40-plus years of the award. He has earned USA Swimming Coach of the Year honors six times, the USA Swimming Foundation’s Golden Goggle Award four times and was the 2002 USA Swimming Developmental Coach of the Year.
Bowman was the U.S. men’s head coach at the 2007, 2009 and 2013 FINA World Championships and an assistant coach at the 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2011 World Championships. Bowman’s swimmers have set 43 world records and more than 50 American records under his guidance.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Hall of Fame swim coach Bob Bowman will replace Eddie Reese at Texas
