Florida State has announced the addition of Nick Zorn as an assistant swimming coach for the Seminoles. He fills the spot left by the departure of former diving assistant coach Anne Olson on the Seminoles’ staff.
Zorn spent the last two seasons as a volunteer assistant at Alabama, working with the sprinters in 2016-2017 and the breaststroke group in 2017-2018. That includes breaststroker Justine MacFarlane, who finished 16th at NCAAs in 2018 in the 100 breaststroke. He also led the team’s summer dryland training program.
Zorn’s coaching career began at the Delta Aquatic Club, which he helped coach during his senior season at NCAA Division II school Delta State University. There he was a 6-time NSISC conference champion, including in the 100 free individually as a senior in 2015-2016. That year, he also won his first career All-America honor as part of Delta State’s 5th-place finishing 200 free relay at NCAAs.
When Neal Studd took over as the new head coach at Florida State for the 2016-2017 season, the team had 55 swimmers and 10 divers, making their swimming athletes-per-coach ratio 13.75-to-1 for swimming and 5-to-1 for diving. For the 2018-2019 season, the team currently lists 65 swimmers (with most of that growth being on the women’s side) and just 7 divers. The addition of a 5th swimming coach in place of a diving assistant makes those ratios 13-to-1 for swimming and 7-to-1 for diving.
Zorn joins Emma Svensson, Ozzie Quevedo, and Dan Carrington as swimming assistants on the Florida State staff.
Last season, Florida State’s women finished 8th out of 12 teams at the ACC Championships, while the men were 5th out of 12 teams. For the men, 195 out of 828.5 of their points (23.5% were scored by divers, while for the women, 137 of their 578.5 points (23.7%) were scored by divers, including senior ACC Champion Blair Mulka.
Think that is 65 for the men and women? UF has 38 male swimmers (plus divers) and 32 women (plus divers). When I add that up it is 70 swimmers plus divers, last time I checked 70 was more than 65. I would not be surprised if you can find several other schools that are close to 65 swimmers when you add men and women together.
65???? Seriously???I’m sure that creates a really “close” team. Looks like Studd is taking anyone he can get and see if something sticks.
Way too many !
A famous British anthropologist named Robin Dunbar did a lot of research on group size, and developed something called “Dumbar’s number,” which is what he believes to be the cognitive limit for developing cohesive groups (in so many words). There’s tons of discussion about this, and what it means, and if Dunbar was right. But, it’s a number used throughout history to group military units – which historically have been the ultimate ‘teams’ in the time before sports being a primary cultural driver that they are. Most modern day military companies are between 120 and 150 people.
Alabama’s football roster has 117 players by my count. They seem to do pretty well as a team.
65 seems well within the… Read more »
You’re comparing the Texas program to Florida State? Please……make a better argument.
Ok, never mind. Your response makes it clear that your statement has no foundation, you’re just here to rip on Florida State. Which is kind of lame and boring, but your prerogative.