The Florida State Seminoles have significantly beefed up the program’s name-recognition next season with the addition of two high-profile graduate assistants.
One is South African Olympian Gideon Louw, who finished 9th in London in the individual 100 freestyle. Louw comes to Florida State after his time spent training under Brett Hawke at Auburn. His experience training under one of the country’s top sprint coaches will be invaluable to what has become an outstanding sprint group in the last two years, including swimmers like Mark Weber who will be the fastest returning 50 freestyler in the ACC next season.
Louw also has three NCAA relay titles on his resume, and in 2009 was a member of an NCAA Record-setting medley relay.
He won’t be coming alone, however. Former United States National Team swimmer Matt Patton will be coming from the University of Michigan to also join the staff as a grad assistant.
Patton was a 7-time Big 12 Champion and a member of the 2007 U.S. Pan Pac Team, but really hit his stride as a post-graduate with Club Wolverine. He peaked at the perfect time, with a 7th-place finish at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials in the men’s 400 free.
Louw will be working on a Masters in Exercise Science, while Patton will study Sports Management.
“I am extremely excited for our team and staff that Gideon and Matt wanted to study their Masters Degrees at Florida State,” head coach Neil Harper said. “They were both Academic All Americans and their choice of Florida State speaks highly of our nationally ranked Sports Management and Exercise Science programs. These two men have had unbelievable success at the NCAA and International levels. They are very well known in the swimming world and are respected and very well liked for their class, intellect and dedication. They will be a huge boost to the confidence and experience they can impart and share with this year’s talented team.”
Neither swimmer has plans to continue training, though don’t be surprised to see them hop in the water to stay fresh either.