McGee Moody begins his second season as head swim coach at South Carolina. In just one season at the helm, Moody has overseen a successful transition as Carolina sent three swimmers to the NCAA Championships. Nicholas Walkotten and Dominique Lendjel represented the Gamecock men while Christy Williams swam for the women. Aside from NCAA competition, Moody saw even more success as nine Gamecock swimmers competed in the Olympic Trials. One swimmer, sophomore Sharntelle McLean, represented her home country of Trinidad & Tobago in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In addition, senior Nicholas Walkotten competed at the Short Course World Championships. Prior to taking over at Carolina, Moody spent three years at William & Mary, where his teams achieved 559 life-time best swims, 301 all-time Tribe top-10 performances, 46 school records and 18 gold medals at the Colonial Athletic Association Championships. The Tribe swimming program also excelled academically. The women received Academic All-America honors in each semester under Moody's tutelage. In 2007, Moody earned the conference's Coach of the Year honor after leading his women's team (8-4, 6-2 CAA) to the first Colonial Athletic Association Championship in the program's 80-year history with a record-tying 12 gold medals. In doing so, the squad swept the conference awards by winning Performer of the Meet, Swimmer of the Year and Rookie of the Year. The men's program finished with a winning record (6-3-1, 5-2-1 CAA) for the first time since 1998-99, and finished fourth at the conference meet behind a pair of runner-up performances and a host of bronze medals. In 2005-06, the Tribe women's team improved upon its fourth-place conference finish in 2005 by taking second, passing George Mason on the final day of the CAA Championships. During the season, the women were even more impressive, posting a 10-4 ledger (8-1 CAA), to set the school record for conference wins in a season. In the conference, their only blemish was against eventual champion UNC-Wilmington. The men also experienced improvement, achieving five dual meet wins for the first time since 1999 and posting a .500 mark (4-4) in the conference. They also improved on their result at the conference tournament, riding a bevy of personal records in the last two days to a fifth-place finish. Moody came to the College after spending four seasons as an assistant men's swimming coach at the United States Naval Academy. During his tenure at Navy, Moody coached the Midshipmen's first NCAA automatic qualifier since 1996 in addition to guiding numerous NCAA, Senior National and Olympic Trial qualifiers. His 200 and 400 freestyle relay teams finished the season ranked in the top 25 of the world and Moody also made an impact in the Navy record book, with his athletes setting all of the top-10 fastest times in school history in both the 50 and 100 freestyles. Building his athletes into academic success stories as well, Navy's men's swimming team was awarded Academic All-America honors all three seasons from 2001-2004 under Moody's direction. Moody got his coaching start at his alma mater, East Carolina University. He was the top assistant swim coach for both men and women for the Pirates from 1996-2000. While working in nearly every facet of the program at East Carolina, Moody coached over 25 varsity record holders. A 1998 graduate of East Carolina, Moody swam on the Pirates' varsity squad for four seasons, setting several freshman records and captaining the team his junior and senior years. Moody was also an Olympic Trials qualifier in the 200 freestyle in 1992. Moody, who earned both a bachelor's degree in psychology and master's in sports administration from ECU, is an active professional in the swimming community. A member of both the American Swimming Coaches Association and the College Swimming Coaches Association of America, he has served as the chair of the latter's Media Relations Committee since 2001. He and his wife, Monica, have four daughters: Sydney (8), Olivia (5), Lily (2) and newborn Whitney. |
|
|||||||||||||||||
