Catherine Vogt, instrumental in Pac-12 titles the past two years as well as multiple top NCAA finishes during her eight-year Trojan tenure, has been promoted to Associate Head Coach for USC’s Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving teams, Senior Associate Athletic Director Donna Heinel announced Monday (June 27).
“Catherine has done a tremendous job during her time with our men’s and women’s programs. She’s a great leader and coach and an even better person,” Heinel said. “She’s been integral in our success and we’re proud of her achievements. She’s a true role model for all of our swimmers and divers.”
In addition to Vogt’s success in all facets of the Trojans’ program, she has also established herself as one of the world’s top open water coaches and will serve as the open water head coach for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team, the latest in a series of open water head coaching stints for America’s national team.
Vogt, who has served on USC Head Coach Dave Salo’s staff during all of her eight seasons at Troy, helped the Trojans’ women’s team win their first ever Pac-12 Conference title in 2016. USC, which got scoring from all 21 of its swimmers and six divers, scored a program-best 1481 points en route to the first-place finish.
The squad ultimately featured eight All-Americans who helped USC to sixth at the 2016 NCAAs in March, culminating in an NCAA title in the 400y free relay, another first for the program. With the sixth-place finish, the Trojans are one of only four teams to have finished in the top 8 in each of the past seven years, joining Georgia, Cal and Stanford.
Said Salo: “Catherine has been instrumental over the past several years in invigorating our program and helping us lead the team to Pac-12 and NCAA success and I look forward to that continuing over the next several years.”
Vogt, who also works closely with the Trojans’ men’s team, helped the 2015 men’s squad win its first conference title since 1977 and then finish fourth at the NCAAs for the second time in three years. USC, which has posted NCAA relay titles in three of the past four years and NCAA top 8 finishes in five of the past six years, finished second at the 2016 Pac-12s, giving it back-to-back top 2 finishes for the first time since 1997-98.
Vogt’s upcoming Olympic head coaching assignment follows her role as USA’s open water head coach for the 2015 FINA World Championships, her third such stint. She also was the head coach for the Americans at the 2013 and 2009 World Championships. In 2015, she led Team USA to the open water team world title. There, the U.S. won three medals and posted 11 top-10 finishes throughout the open water competition.
University of Southern California contributed this report.