Tim Murphy completed his 10th season of at the helm of the Penn State men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs in 2022-23.
Throughout 2022-23, both teams continued to excel academically and athletically. The women's squad earned the distinction of College Swimming and Diving Association's (CSCAA) Scholar All-America Team for the 23rd straight semester while the men received the honor for the 13th time in a row. The Nittany Lions won seven B1G weekly athletic honors, broke five school records, sent two athletes to the NCAA Championships and scored in every event at the Big Ten Championships (*women's team only).
The year's freshman class consistently impressed with program top-10 times in the 100 and 200 free (C. Meisner), the 200, 500, 1000, 1650 free (Cisternas), the 100 back (Morley) and the 100 and 200 breast (Lazzerini). As Murphy continues to grow and develop the team, returning veteran Baganha became an All-American at the men's NCAA Championships, qualifying for finals in the 100 fly.
During the 2021-22 season, the Nittany Lions showcased their speed in the post-season, breaking six school records at the Big Ten Championships in addition to earning 64 top-24 finishes.
Penn State sent six men (Will Roberson, Tommy Hurley, Michael Daly, Daniel Raisanen, Lachlan Byrne and Victor Baganha) and one women (Marie Schobel) to the NCAA Championships, marking 10 consecutive years of scoring points at the national meet.
For the men, Raisanen swam the 200 breast and placed in 27th with a time of 1:53.79, dropping 0.24 seconds and breaking Mitch Scherer's 2012 school record. He also finished 18th in the 100 breast as Baganha took 17th in the 100 fly. Notably, the 200 medley relay team, finishing 21st, broke a school record with a time of 1:23.85.
For the women, Schobel excelled in the backstroke events, earning A-Final appearances in the 200 and 100 at the Big Ten Championships and securing her spot in the national meet for the third year in a row. In the 100 back at NCAAs, she broke Penn State's eight-year record by 0.06 seconds and placed 23rd in the nation.
In 2020-21, Murphy guided the Nittany Lions back to competition after the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly canceled the remainder of the 2020 postseason.
The Nittany Lions jumped right back into preparations and into the water, posting milestones of success with four school records, 18 top-10 times, dozens of personal bests and the program’s 21st Big Ten champion in Daly (400 IM). In back-to-back years, at least five Penn State competitors have qualified for the NCAA Championships, with seven who would have represented the Nittany Lions in the 2020 NCAA Championships.
Penn State scored points in the NCAA Championships for the ninth-straight year in 2020-21 and have placed in the top 30 at NCAAs in five of the last seven years. Six Nittany Lion swimmers (5 men, 1 woman) and a men’s diver competed in the 2020-21 postseason. The five men earned All-America honorable-mention honors as Daly and the 200 free relay team of Gabe Castano, Will Roberson, Jake Houck and Zane Sutton set a Penn State record and finished 13th.
Two podium finishes, including a first Big Ten Champion in the 400 IM, were highlights for the Nittany Lion men at the conference championships, posting 14 top-16 finishes. In addition to Daly’s Big Ten victory in the 400 IM for a personal best and school record, he finished fifth in the 200 backstroke and seventh in the 100 back. Will Roberson earned a silver medal leading three Nittany Lions among the top eight in the 50 freestyle with Houck taking sixth and Castano eighth.
Schobel, who became the first Penn State women’s swimmer to advance to B final of the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 100 back, scored 42 points at the Big Ten Championship and qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 100 and 200 back events. She finished 22nd in the 100 back and 39th in the 200 back.
Murphy has coached three NCAA medalists earning five medals, including 2016 Olympian Shane Ryan’s silver (2014) and bronze (2015) medal performances in the men’s 100 back, Ally McHugh’s silver (2018) and gold (2019) in the women’s mile and Hector Garcia Boissier’s silver in the 1-meter dive (2019). They have also captured one relay and nine individual Big Ten Championships as Daly added to that total with Penn State’s first conference crown in the 400 IM in 2021.
In 24 seasons as an NCAA Division I head coach, Murphy has seen 49 student-athletes earn All-America honors on 129 occasions, with 31 of those garnering first-team All-America honors 75 times. He has watched his contingents bring home 107 individual league championships and 32 relay titles, winning at least five individual or relay championships on 13 occasions.
Three Nittany Lions competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Gabe Castano competed in the 50 freestyle for Mexico. Melissa Rodriguez raced in the 100 and 200 Breaststroke events for Mexico. Shane Ryan, competing in his second Olympic games, raced in the 800 freestyle relay and 100 butterfly events for Ireland as part of Ireland’s first men’s relay in the Olympics since 1979. Ryan set an Ireland record with a time of 52.52, a personal best, in the 100 butterfly.
Murphy was designated as a U.S. National Team coach prior to the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. The next summer, in 2019, five different Nittany Lions totaled 11 Olympic Trials cuts, led by Daly’s five, and Castano earned a bronze medal at the Pan-Am Games. Daly competed in three events (400 IM, 200 free, 200 back), finishing seventh in the 400 IM in the U.S. Olympic Trials, held in summer of 2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the Tokyo Olympic Games for a year. Hayden Harlow (200 IM), Jake Houck (50 free) and Will Roberson (50 free) also represented Penn State while Maddie Cooke, Maddie Hart, Schobel and Ally McHugh competed for a chance to complete on the women’s side.
The Nittany Lions have been successful in the classroom as well, with the Nittany Lion women surpassing a 3.0 team grade point average for 21-straight semesters and the men doing the same over the last 10 semesters. Individually, 200 have earned recognition from the CSCAA as Scholar All-Americans or honorable mention All-Americans. The 2020-21 academic year produced a total of 42 Academic All-Big Ten accolades with both teams hitting high-water marks as the women had a program single-year best 26 honorees and the men tied a single-year best with 16 earning honors. The women’s team led all Penn State athletics teams with 18 honorees in 2020-21 with five on the men’s side.
Nittany Lions earned the 2016-17 and 2017-18 Penn State women’s Big Ten Postgraduate Scholarships with swimmer Casey Francis earning the prestigious honor in 2017 and diver McKayla Mawn doing the same in 2018.
Murphy’s NCAA qualifiers shined once again at the 2020 Big Ten Championships with highlighted by Daly who finished with three top-five finishes after winning silver in the 200 back, fourth in the 400 IM, and fifth in the 500 free. In addition, Olympic hopeful Gabe Castano placed second in the 50 free after swimming the nation's fifth-fastest time. On the women's side, Maddie Hart finished with two top-eight times with a third-place finish in the 100 fly and a sixth-place finish in the 100 back, and Schobel swam for ninth in both the 100 and 200 back. The men’s 200 free relay team composed of Castano, Will Roberson, Juliusz Gosieniecki, and Austin Wilson also qualified.
The 2018-19 season was highlighted by the Penn State women’s program’s first individual NCAA National Championship, as Ally McHugh won gold in the mile. McHugh also broke her own record in the 400 IM to lead Penn State to a top-30 finish at NCAAs, and she won the Big Ten mile championship. On the men’s side, Hector Garcia Boissier became Penn State’s highest-finishing diver, with a silver medal at NCAAs, while swimmers Michael Daly and Gabe Castano stood out with Daly earning a new school record in the mile and Castano placing 17th in the 50 free.
Several Nittany Lions have distinguished themselves on the international stage during Murphy’s Penn State tenure. Shane Ryan posted the best finish by a Penn State men’s swimmer at the Olympics in 2016 and became the first to advance out of the preliminaries, placing 16th in the 100m back. Competing for Ireland, Ryan was just the second from the Penn State men’s side to compete in the Olympics and the first since 2004. He went on to compete in the 2017 FINA World Championships and earned gold in the 50m back at the World University games. Ryan has added three bronze medals in the 50 back in the 2018 World Championships and the 2018 and 2019 European Championships to his haul. Ryan also competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the 100 Butterfly and 800 Freestyle Relay events.
The mentoring of McHugh to National Champion status has been one of the highlights of Murphy’s tenure. She won a silver medal in the 400 IM at the 2017 Big Ten Championships and improved at the NCAA Championships, cracking the top 16 in both the 400 IM and mile. She then made her presence known at the U.S. National Championships with four top-12 finishes, highlighted by fourth-place efforts in the 400m IM and 1500m freestyle, thus earning a trip to the World University Games with Team USA. There, she silvered in the 400m IM and 4x200m Free events.
McHugh shattered Penn State’s 400 IM and 500, 1000 and 1650 freestyle records en route to her first Big Ten and NCAA medals. McHugh took gold in the mile and silver in the 400 IM at Big Tens, and then won silver in the mile at NCAAs. She followed that with a U.S. National Championship in the 400m IM. She advanced to the finals of the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials in the 400 IM in a session that featured four of the fastest times in the world, she placed fifth.
Murphy has also overseen a resurgence for Penn State diving, now working with diving coach Jeff DiNicola. Hector Garcia Boissier, a 2019 graduate, reached the NCAA Championships in all four seasons, highlighted by a second-place finish in the 1-meter at the 2019 NCAA Championships. Garcia broke all of Penn State’s diving records and ranked as an honorable mention All-American five times. Kevin Sullivan competed at the NCAA Championships in 2021, looking to continue the progress.
In 2017-18, growth was the theme for the pair of young squads. According to SwimSwam.com the Penn State women were the most improved major conference team at a conference championship for the year. On the men’s side, the Nittany Lion men’s swimmers posted 47 career-best times during the Big Ten Championships, and 18 of the 25 who traveled to the meet scored.
In his first season in 2013-14, Murphy led both the men's and women's programs to top-20 finishes at the 2014 NCAA Championships and top-five finishes at the Big Ten Championships, marking one of the most successful seasons in school history for either program. A total of 20 school records were broken throughout the season, including nine for the men's team and 11 for the women's squad. Penn State sent 19 swimmers to the 2014 NCAA Championships, where the Nittany Lion men placed 17th and the women finished 18th. Of the seven men and 12 women who competed at the national meet, 12 received College Swimming Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) honorable mention All-America recognition while sophomores Shane Ryan and Alyson Ackman claimed first team All-America accolades for their efforts.
The men's 17th-place finish at the NCAA National Championships counts as the fifth-best in program history while the squad's total of 72.5 points is the second most by any Nittany Lion team. With their 42-point, 18th-place performance, the women's team turned in the fifth-most points and fourth-highest finish in school history.
Murphy, named the head coach for the Penn State programs on August 12, 2013, and is Penn State’s seventh coach in men's history and the fifth coach for the women's program. He spent the previous 15 seasons, from 1998-2013, as Harvard's men's head coach.
During his time with the Crimson, Murphy compiled a 122-11 dual meet record and captured six Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League titles. He posted seven undefeated dual meet seasons and brought three top-20 recruiting classes to Cambridge, Massachusetts, during his final three seasons. His 2012-13 recruits were ranked as the nation's No. 10 recruiting class by CollegeSwimming.com.
At the time of his arrival to Penn State, Murphy's swimmers owned 13 Harvard school records, four of the five relays marks and almost 80 percent of the top-10 marks in Crimson history. He saw seven of his student-athletes earn Academic All-Ivy League and his 2006 squad earned the College Swimming Coaches Association of American Academic Team Award.
18 different Crimson student-athletes earned All-America honors on 72 occasions, with 14 garnering first team All-American honors 44 times. Murphy watched as his contingent brought home 97 individual league championships and 31 relay titles, winning at least five individual or relay championships on 13 occasions. During his tenure, the Crimson won at least 10 individual/relay titles at six league championships.
He saw 63 swimmers or divers earn first team All-Ivy League on 251 different occasions, along with numerous second team All-Ivy League picks. Alex Meyer finished 10th at the 2012 Olympic Games in the 10K Marathon event and is an Open Water World Champion in the 25K event.
Murphy was appointed as the head Olympic coach for the men's open water team at the 2012 Olympic Games and serves on the OIOC committee for USA Swimming. He has placed athletes on Olympic, World University, Pan-Pacific and Pan-American teams, including Meyer, who was named the 2011 Fran Crippen Memorial Male Open Water Swimmer of the Year by USA Swimming.
Murphy, who served as an assistant men's coach at the 2009 World University Games in Belgrade, Serbia, also worked as an assistant at the 2001 World University Games in Beijing, China, and at the 1993 World Short Course Championships. He was also a member of the Open Water Staff at the 1998 World Championships in Australia.
Before his arrival at Harvard, Murphy served as the head coach of the nationally renowned Wilton YMCA Wahoos in Wilton, Connecticut, for 13 years. He led the Wahoos to seven national championships and was named the YMCA National Coach of the Year in 1989. Murphy also garnered Connecticut Swimming Coaches Association Coach of the Year honors in 1988 and 1998.
Murphy graduated from West Chester (Pa.) University in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in health and physical education from. He also earned his master's degree in physical education from West Chester in 1988. Murphy was inducted into the West Chester Hall of Fame in 2012.
Tim Murphy