June 22, 2018
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics mourns the passing of Ed Bartsch, former assistant coach of the men's and women's swimming teams, who passed away Monday at the age of 75 after a multi-year battle with heart complications.
Bartsch coached at Penn State for seven seasons from 2001-08 before joining St. Andrew's Aquatics in Boca Raton, Florida, as a coach from 2008-14. According to St. Andrew's, Bartsch's family will scatter his ashes in the Florida Keys in a private ceremony next week.
Bartsch primarily coached the Nittany Lion men's and women's distance swimmers and helped lead the Nittany Lion women's program to its first Big Ten Championships in 2002, 2005 and 2006. Under his tutelage, individual highlights included women's swimmer Nikki Collins - a two-time All-American and a school record holder in the mile - and men's swimmer Chris Sullivan, who broke the school records in both the 1000 and 1650 freestyle at Big Ten Championships and participated in the 2007 NCAA Championships. On the national stage, several competed at the 2004 and 2008 U.S Olympic Trials, while Claire Hawley finished second in the 25k event of the 2006 U.S. Open Water National Championships. With her performance at that event, she qualified as one of eight members of the U.S. team for the Open Water World Championships in Naples, Italy.
Prior to arriving at Penn State, Bartsch spent six years at the helm of the Villanova Wildcats men's and women's teams, where he won two Big East women's titles ('95 and '96), had 17 Big East relay titles, 11 All-Americans, one NCAA individual champion, one Olympian and a top 20 team finish at the 1999 Women's NCAA Championships. Bartsch also led the Philippine Olympic team to eight Philippine National records at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games and piloted Team Trojan, in Los Angeles, California, from 1989-1992, where his swimmers won seven gold medals in the 1991 Southeast Asian Games, three silver medals at The World Student Games and four U.S. Swimming Individual National Championship Titles, while establishing one world record.
An illustrious swimming career of his own included winning the 1963 NCAA title in the 200-yard backstroke, a PanAm games gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke, NCAA All-American and captain of the University of Michigan swim team (1965).
Check GoPSUSports.com for coverage of the Penn State swimming and diving teams. Follow the team on Twitter at @PennStateSWIM and on Facebook at http://facebook.com/pennstateswimminganddiving.