Tom Iannone, an assistant coach with the Occidental men's and women's swimming and diving teams for the past four seasons, has been named interim head coach, Jaime Hoffman announced.
Iannone, a veteran with more than 25 years of experience coaching at various levels of the sport, takes over for Shea Manning, who has decided to pursue other opportunities in the swimming field.
In Manning's four-year tenure, Oxy student-athletes set 26 team records, 121 All-Time Top Ten Performances, 26 All-SCIAC Performances, 3 SCIAC Athlete of the Week Awards, five Honorable Mention All-American citations, 6 All-American citations, the 2013 SCIAC Female Performer of the Year and a 2-time individual NCAA National Champion in the 200 Breaststroke (2013 and 2014).
"It is with mixed emotions that we say goodbye to Shea, while welcoming Tom in this new expanded role," Hoffman said. "Tom is a proven coach with a long track record of success and we're excited to have him working with our athletes."
On top of coaching at Oxy, Iannone has most recently served as the head coach at Mayfield Senior School and at Marymount HS in Pasadena. He also had stints at Sidwell Friends School, an elite private school in Washington, D.C. During his six years there, he led the high school girl's team to three Independent School League titles and two runner-up finishes at the Metro Championships. He also worked as an assistant track and field coach for the middle school, and taught various physical education classes for the lower school.
"I'm really excited to have this opportunity after spending four years with such a wonderfully talented group of people, in and out of the water," Iannone said. "We've got a great group of swimmers that are ready to get started this Fall."
Iannone is a certified National Federation of High School swim coach and an International Sports Sciences Association fitness trainer.
Iannone will be assisted by former Oxy swimming star and team captain Juliet Suess, who earned six team records and a SCIAC championship in her career. She was also Editor-in-Chief of The Occidental Weekly, the school's official newspaper. During her tenure, the newspaper won multiple awards; an article written by Suess was nominated as a national finalist by the Society for Professional Journalists. She spent the last year as a Fulbright Scholar in Bielefeld, Germany where she taught English and played on a water polo team.
