Utah Tech Hires New Swimming Coach

Utah Tech University hired Shawn King as its new women's swimming coach. I love this hire because of his local ties. He went to UTU and then coached at Desert Hills and had a ton of success running that program.

King also coached at the highest prep levels all around the country. I think it's a home run hire.

Here's the press release from UT Athletics Media Relations (full article here):

Utah Tech University Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Ken Beazer has announced the appointment of Utah Tech alumnus Shawn King as the new head women's swimming coach.

"I am very excited to welcome Shawn back to his alma mater," Beazer said. "Shawn is very familiar with our program, the area and region. He is a great fit for program and I believe he can continue the overall progression and momentum that was established by [former head] Coach [Dan] Kesler the past two seasons."

Coach King, who served as an assistant coach with the Trailblazer program during the 2020-21 season, returns to Utah Tech after spending the past two years as an assistant men's and women's swim coach at BYU. While with the Cougars' program, he served as the distance coach and the men's team recruiting coordinator. 

King has coached athletes from prep levels to the national level with USA Swimming while working with clubs in Utah, Idaho, Texas, Illinois, and Florida. His athletes' accomplishments include multiple Utah state record holders, U.S. national qualifiers, and Division I and Division II collegiate athletes. 

Outside of club swimming, King has extensive high school experience across the country. Most recently, he served as head coach at St. George's Desert Hills High School, leading his teams to three consecutive boys championships and back-to-back girls 4A state titles, being named UHSAA Coach of the Year three times. 

King was voted the NFHS Utah High School Coach of the Year in 2019, following a season where the DHHS boys relays broke all three 4A relay records and the overall Utah records in the 200 free and 400 free relays and an All -American selection in the 200 free relay.

"This is so exciting, it's kind of a dream honestly because I wanted to be here," Coach King said. "I was so excited to be able to start my [collegiate coaching] career here, and now to be able to continue in the head coaching capacity is everything I've wanted – it's great.

"Our expectations are to pick up where the team has been and advance it, make it better, and continue to build upon what [former UT head coach Dan Kesler] did before," King added. "I think Coach Kesler did an awesome job making Utah Tech Swimming relevant, building it into something that was a powerhouse competing in the Western Athletic Conference, and we want to continue to build on that."

King earned his Bachelor's degree in Psychology at Utah Tech in 2014, and completed work on his Master's degree in Health Psychology at Grand Canyon in 2022. He and his wife, Heather, are the parents of four young boys. 

This past season, Utah Tech raced to a fourth-place team at the 2023 Western Athletic Conference championship meet, which was the best overall finish at any conference meet in program history.

The Trailblazers, who scored a program-best 462 points at the WAC meet, wound up with 10 total medals over the four days of competition, which included the four gold medals, far and away the highest medal total in program history, along with several more top-10 individual and relay finishes.