CoaChinG staff
Brian Smith assistant Coach Third Year
Brian Smith is entering his third season on the Georgia coaching staff after spending four seasons at Northern Arizona, where his primary responsibility was in coaching strokes and sprints. Smith helps coach Georgia’s sprinters. Last season, under Smith’s tutelage, Morgan Scroggy placed second in the 200yard freestyle and fourth in the 100 freestyle at the NCAA Championship. Also at the NCAAs in the 200, Allison Schmitt came in third, Chelsea Nauta placed eighth and Erica Malagón finished 16th. Smith guided Anne-Marie Botek and Scroggy to Southeastern Conference titles in the 50 and 100 freestyle, respectively. Schmitt (200 freestyle), Michael Arnold (100 freestyle) and Peter Benner (200 freestyle) set school records, and Schmitt and Benner was chosen as the SEC Freshmen of the Year. In 2008, Scroggy earned All-America honors in the 200
Alex Braunfeld assistant Coach Second Year
Veteran coach Alex Braunfeld is entering his second season as an assistant coach at Georgia after decades of success at the collegiate and club levels. Braunfeld spent 2008 at Florida State coaching the distance swimmers and guiding two student-athletes to All-America honors as well as one to the United States National Team. In 2007, he was an assistant with Bucknell and helped the women to a second-place finish and the men to a third-place showing in the Patriot League. Prior to joining Bucknell, he served as a coach for the Dynamo Swim Club in Atlanta. As a coach for Dynamo from 19972005, Braunfeld coached five swimmers to the USA National Junior team in a four-year stretch and helped three others earn spots on the USA Pan Am Games team and the USA Goodwill Games squad. Braunfeld also coached Dynamo from 1988-1991 and led the team to a Women’s USA Senior National Champi-
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freestyle at the NCAAs and Nauta added a top10 finish in the 200. Nauta also medaled at the SECs in the 200. Smith’s collegiate experience began in 1991 when he started a two-year stint at Arizona State, first as a graduate assistant and then as assistant coach for the women’s team. He was involved in travel, recruiting and dryland training for the squad, which ranked 13th nationally in 1992 and ninth in 1993. After Arizona State, Smith served five years on the staff at Rice, serving as an assistant for the men’s and women’s teams. He was part of a staff that produced the program’s first Division I NCAA Championship qualifiers (1994) and continued to qualify athletes for five straight years. Smith served as the recruiting coordinator, travel coordinator, alumni liaison, strength and conditioning liaison, and sprinting coach. The women broke 17 of 18 school records in the five years he was there, and the men broke 13 marks. Smith also served as a graduate assistant coach at Ohio University in 1990-91. He is a 1990 graduate of Clark University in Massachusetts, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. He followed that with a master’s in athletic administration from Ohio in 1991. Smith and his wife, Alyssa, have three daughters, Olivia, Ella and Gwyneth. onship and a combined USA Team Championship runner-up performance. He also guided Dynamo to three top five USA Senior National finishes. From 1992-97, Braunfeld was an assistant for the Michigan men’s swimming team and oversaw recruiting as well as weight and dry land training for the Wolverines. Braunfeld helped the Wolverines to four top-3 finishes at the NCAA Championship highlighted by a national title in 1995. The following year, he helped place six Michigan swimmers on the U.S. Olympic Team at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. Prior to Braunfeld’s first stint with Dynamo, he was the head coach for the Dayton Raiders, a club team in Dayton, Ohio, from 1981-87. While coaching the Raiders, Braunfeld also was an assistant with the men’s and women’s swimming programs at Wright State. Braunfeld saw two or more of his swimmers compete at Senior Nationals and helped several others achieve Junior Nationals qualifying times. Wright State finished in the top five at the Division II National Championship each year Braunfeld was with the program. He also has extensive experience coaching five USA National Junior teams (1984, 1992, 1995, 1996 and 2004), two USA World University Games teams (1997 and 1999), a USA Pan Pacific Games squad in 1995, and two USA Swimming distance camps (1989 and 1990). Braunfeld graduated from Pittsburgh in 1973 and was a letterman for the Panthers’ swimming team.
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