TCU tabs Winchester as new swimming and diving coach
One of the best young minds in swimming and diving is coming to TCU to lead the Frogs' program.
James Winchester, who spent the last three years as the head coach at George Washington, has been named TCU's head swimming and diving coach, the school announced on Thursday.
"We're very excited to welcome James and his family to our Horned Frogs family," said Jeremiah Donati, TCU's director of intercollegiate athletics, in a press release. "A rewarding part of this process was seeing how attractive our head coach position is in the swimming and diving community. We had a lot of national interest with many high-profile candidates."
Winchester comes to the Horned Frogs after leading the Colonials' men's program to Atlantic 10 championships in 2017 and 2018. The 2017 title was the first in program history. He was named A-10 Coach of the Year in each of those seasons.
George Washington made three consecutive NCAA Championship appearances under Winchester. The Colonials set 84 school records during his tenure. Winchester produced a two-time All-American, three A-10 Performers of the Year, and a conference Rookie of the Year as well as 20 first-team and 12 second-team all-conference selections. He also sent swimmers to the Olympics, World Championships, World University Games and Commonwealth Games.
“Among the many areas that separated James were his coaching style, moral character and core values aligning with TCU’s," Donati said. "A special thanks to our Executive Team in Athletics, specifically Gretchen Bouton, Kim Johnson, Jack Hesselbrock, Mike Sinquefield and Ike Ukaegbu for their assistance in identifying great candidates and further vetting them to ensure they met the expectations of being a head coach at TCU. James will be a terrific addition and fit in the TCU and Fort Worth communities.”
During his coaching career, Winchester has mentored nine national champions, 40 All-Americans and five top-100 world-ranked student-athletes while also securing numerous top-25 nationally-ranked recruiting classes. He has been part of programs totaling 34 Academic All-America team awards.
Prior to George Washington, Winchester was a two-time honorable-mention NCAA Assistant Coach of the Year at Utah.
Winchester started his coaching career in 2006 at Drury, where he was an assistant coach for Drury's men's and women's teams that won the 2007 NCAA Division II National Championship.
He swam at Louisville, where he graduated in 2004 with a degree in business administration.
This story was originally published April 27, 2018 at 10:22 AM with the headline "TCU tabs Winchester as new swimming and diving coach."