The 2018-19 Cal men’s swimming and diving team will have a new voice on the pool deck with head coach David Durden announcing Tuesday that Chase Kreitler will join the Bears as an assistant coach for the upcoming season.
An accomplished coach at several stops throughout his career, Kreitler comes to Cal after working alongside former Cal men’s assistant Greg Meehan as the volunteer assistant for the Stanford women’s team. A native of Valley Village, Calif., Kreitler also spent two seasons as volunteer assistant at Texas, three years as assistant coach at LSU and served stints as an assistant at Eastern Michigan and his alma mater, Cal State Bakersfield.
“I had the opportunity to meet Chase when he was just starting out as an assistant coach at Cal State Bakersfield in 2010,” Durden said. “I followed his coaching progression from CSUB to Eastern Michigan to LSU to Texas, and now most recently to Stanford working with Greg Meehan and Tracy Slusser. Through my conversations with Peter Linn at Eastern and Greg at Stanford, Chase is the perfect fit for our men’s swimming and diving program at Cal. I am excited for our alumni, our athletes, and our incoming athletes to have the opportunity to work with Chase. The Cal men’s swimming program welcomes both he and his wife Liz into our environment, and I look forward to Chase continuing to enhance our program on both the collegiate and international level of swimming.”
Kreitler, who steps into the role vacated by new Wisconsin head coach Yuri Suguiyama, has played a part in working with and mentoring accomplished swimmers at each career stop. Most recently, that meant working with each training group and performing video analysis as well as recruiting at Texas. He moved to the Bay Area in April when his wife Liz started a job with Facebook.
At LSU, Kreitler coached seven individuals to program records in three seasons and helped the Tigers increase its number of Olympic Trials qualifiers from seven in 2012 to 17 in 2016. Under his tutelage, Frank Greeff scored in the 200 butterfly at the 2014 NCAA Championships and took silver in the 100 fly at the 2015 SEC Championships.
Before heading to LSU, Kreitler helped Eastern Michigan win back to back Mid-American Conference championships in 2012 and 2013. He worked directly with two-time All-American Jacob Hanson and the men’s and women’s programs combined to break 20 team records. He also coached for the nationally renowned Club Wolverine and in the summer of 2013 helped lead it to a first place finish at the Central Zone Sectional Meet.
Kreitler began his coaching career at his alma mater, Cal State Bakersfield. After serving as a co-captain as a senior and earning the university’s outstanding student award in student exercise science, he joined the staff and helped Bakersfield swimmers break 10 team records in two years on deck. He also helped guide the Roadrunners to their first Mountain Pacific Sports Federation title, the program’s first conference crown as a Division I school.
“I would like to thank Dave Durden for the incredible opportunity to join the California program,” Kreitler said. “I have always had a tremendous amount of respect for Dave and the success the Cal student-athletes have had academically, at the NCAA Championships and the Olympic Games. I am honored to join the California Swimming & Diving family and to continue the tradition of excellence in Berkeley. Go Bears!”
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