Bloomington native, former Indiana University standout and 1976 Olympian Jennifer Brinegar has been named the new head swimming coach at Franklin College. She succeeds Zach Rayce, who departed after two seasons to become the aquatic director and head coach at Indian Creek High School. "Jennifer Brinegar is one of the most accomplished names in the history of Indiana swimming, and we are thrilled to welcome her to Franklin College," Griz athletic director Lance Marshall said in a press release Tuesday, Sept. 1. "Her championship pedigree, years of coaching success and her deep roots in this state's swimming community make her the ideal person to lead our program into its next chapter. Our student-athletes are going to learn from someone who has competed and coached at the highest level, and that's a tremendous opportunity for Griz athletics."
Brinegar attended Bloomington South High School before moving to Louisville, Kentucky to train and find more competition. Girls swimming was not offered as a competitive sport by the IHSAA in 1974-75. She made the 1976 U.S. Olympic team as a 15-year-old and made the final in the women's 200-meter freestyle while also swimming in a preliminary heat for the gold-medal winning 400 free relay. She went on to win a pair of national championships in 1977, a gold medal in the 400 free relay at the 1978 World Aquatics Championships and a silver in the 800 free at the 1979 Pan American Games. At Indiana, she won national championships in the 500 and 1,650-yard freestyles and took home seven Big Ten titles before graduating in 1984. The Hoosiers inducted Brinegar to their Athletic Hall of Fame in 1999 and she was inducted to the Monroe County Sports Hall of Fame in 2011. Brinegar earned a law degree from Vanderbilt. In 1994, Brinegar returned home to work in the athletic department at IU. She earned a master's degree in sports management in 1996 and was promoted to assistant athletic director from 1999-2008 and then to senior assistant athletic director until 2021. Her coaching career began in 2009 as a volunteer assistant for Donner Swim Club in Columbus, Indiana. Among her students were sons Kevin, who was a member of a Division III national championship team at Denison in 2016; and Michael, who went on to win a state championship in the 500 free and made the 2021 U.S. Olympic team as a distance freestyler. Brinegar founded the Club Olympia Swim Team in 2016. Brinegar will be the third head coach in the history of the Franklin program, which started in 2010. The women's team has won the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference meet every year since it began in 2019 while the men have been runners-up six years in a row. This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Franklin College tabs Olympian from Bloomington to head swim program