|
Jim Pyrch begins his fifth year as the Mean Green's diving coach.
During the 2011-12 season, Pyrch coached the Mean Green to new records on the one and three-meter dives and prepared North Texas to compete on the platform dive for the first time in program history. Out of the three events, his North Texas divers broke the school record eight times.
Pyrch directed Catherine Johnson to a program-best four Sun Belt Diver of the Week awards. At the conference meet, he led Johnson to two silver medals in the one and three meter boards.
Two of his North Texas divers qualified for the NCAA Zone Meet with Johnson making the cut in back-to-back years. For the second year in a row, multiple Mean Green divers have qualified in the same year.
On the one-meter dive, North Texas divers took sole ownership of eight places on the all-time top-10 performances list. He coached his team to nine new all-time top-10 performances on the three-meter dive and took three more spots on the platform dive.
Pyrch led the Mean Green to its most successful diving year in 2010-11, with three of his divers qualifying for the NCAA Zone Meet, marking the first time since 2003 that any Mean Green diver has qualified and the first time multiple divers have qualified in the same year.
North Texas divers set the school record and seven of the top 10 one-meter scores in school history in 2010-11. On the three-meter board, Mean Green divers set the top three scores in school history, and eight of the top 10. Of the top 10 three-meter scores in school history, all of them have come under the watch of Pyrch.
At the conference meet, Pyrch led Catherine Johnson to a second-place finish in both the one and three meter competitions, and Delia Covo took home third in the three-meter.
In 2009-10, Pyrch guided Mary Beth Geeze to a second-place finish on the one-meter board at the Sun Belt Championships while having both Geeze and Delia Covo record points on both stages. As a squad, the North Texas divers brought home four different Sun Belt Conference Diver of the Week honors throughout the season.
In his first year, Pyrch made his mark on the program, having three divers finish in the top seven all-time at North Texas in the one and three-meter dives. One of his divers posted the second-highest score at North Texas in each event. The team also had three divers receive scores of at least 200 points in a meet for the first time in program history.
A two-time National Diving Coach of the Year (1987, 1993), Pyrch has extensive international coaching experience with the US National Diving team, and spent nearly a quarter of a century as the diving coach at Yale.
Pyrch has produced NCAA All-Americans at the Division I, II and III level, and had the honor of coaching with the US National Diving team in competitions in East Germany, the Soviet Union and China in the summer of 1990. In 1991, he coached for the United States at the World Age Group Championships in Sweden.
Boasting an extensive list of school and conference record holders, as well as conference and national champions, Pyrch has become a nationally-respected coach at the collegiate and international stages. He coached at Fairfield College and the University of Northern Iowa prior to serving at Yale from 1982-2005. Pyrch spent the last three seasons at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.
Pyrch earned All-American honors while diving at Southern Connecticut State from 1972-76. He and his wife, Krissa, have two children.
|
