Nov. 16, 1999

? Question & Answer with Coach Welsh

NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Notre Dame men’s swimming coach Tim Welsh has been appointed by United States Olympic Committee’s (USOC) Board of Directors to serve as a member of its coaching committee.

Welsh, who is in his 15th season at Notre Dame, will be one of 20 members on the committee, which is designed to work on the development of coaching education in all sports within the Olympic movement.

“The honor of it just staggers me,” Welsh says. “One of the things I am most passionate about in life is education programs – creating, developing, and teaching them. So an opportunity to serve the coaching world in that format of coaching education is very exciting.”

A native of Lansdowne, Pa., Welsh was named the 1999 BIG EAST Coach of the Year and led the Notre Dame men’s and women’s squads to 14 Midwestern Collegiate Conference titles from 1985 to 1994. Welsh also coached at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., for eight years (1979-84), leading the Blue Jays to two NCAA Division III men’s national championships and garnering honors as the 1979 NCAA Division III Coach of the Year.

Active on both the national and international coaching levels, Welsh is a member of the American Swimming Coaches Association and served on its board of directors for six years. He also recently completed a three-year stint as the chairman of the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Swimming Committee, serving on the committee from 1991-97. For his efforts, Welsh, a 1966 graduate of Providence College, was awarded the Richard E. Steadman Award in 1993, which is given annually to a swimming and diving coach in the high school, club or university ranks, who has done the most to spread joy and happiness in swimming.