Jess Book enters the 2022-23 season having coached both the men's and women's Kenyon swimming programs together since the 2012-13 campaign.
During the women's 2022 NCAA Championship run, Book led Kenyon to its 24th NCAA crown, snapping Emory University's ten-year stronghold of the national title. After the conclusion of the championship meet, Book was named CSCAA's 2022 NCAA Division III co-Women's Swimming and Diving Coach of the Year, while Crile Hart earned NCAA Division III Women's Swimmer of the Year honors.
In his first season of coaching both Kenyon teams, Book was voted both CSCAA's 2013 NCAA Division III Men’s Coach of the Year and the 2013 NCAA Division III Women’s Coach of the Year. In doing so, he became the first Division III coach to earn both awards in the same season since the NCAA combined the men’s and women’s championship meets.
What Book accomplished in his initial season as the men's coach was nothing short of spectacular. During the 2013 NCAA Championship run, he steered his squad from what was perceived to be an underdog role to wresting the title away from Denison University, the two-time defending champion. The NCAA team title was a first for Book, as a head coach, and was the record-setting 32nd for the Kenyon program. In 2014 and 2015, the Kenyon men won national championships again, making it three in a row and bringing the program's total to 34, an NCAA record spanning all sports and all divisions.
On the women’s side, Book was hired as Kenyon's head coach beginning with the 2010-11 season. At the national level, he directed the Kenyon women to back-to-back fourth-place finishes in his first two seasons. In 2013, however, the Kenyon women took the NCAA by storm, setting over a dozen College records and claiming the runner-up spot in the team standings. In 2014, Kenyon claimed its second straight runner-up finish at the NCAA Championships in Indianapolis. Those results were the first two of five runner-up finishes over the course of a seven-year span.
With the 2020 and 2021 NCAA Championships lost to the pandemic, the Kenyon women returned to the national stage in 2021 and climbed to the top of the podium, winning the program's NCAA-record 24th national championship and ending Emory University's ten-year title run. Book was named the CSCAA co-Coach of the Year and Crile Hart was voted the CSCAA Swimmer of the Year.
Book coached Hart to a pair of Swimmer of the Year awards. In his time with the women's program he's also had nine swimmers who combined for 15 CoSIDA Academic All-America awards, and 12 swimmers who capped off their collegiate careers with NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships.
During his own swimming days, Book, a 2001 Kenyon graduate, was a four-year member of championship-winning swim teams and was an All-America award-winner in the 1999-00 season. He captained the 2000-01 Kenyon men's squad and closed out his senior season with an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship and his third-straight spot on the CSCAA’s All-Academic Team.
After graduation, Book returned to campus and served as Jim Steen's assistant coach four times in a six-year span. As an assistant, he helped guide the women's program to three national titles and the men's team to four. He also played a key role in the development of 20 NCAA individual-event champions and seven NCAA Division III record-setters.
Following up on that time with the Kenyon, Book moved on to gain experience at the NCAA Division I level working as the assistant men's coach at The Ohio State University. During that stretch, the Buckeyes improved from fifth place to first place at Big Ten Championship meets and moved from twenty-first place to ninth place at NCAA Championship meets. Book, who earned bachelor’s degrees in English and biology, acquired his master’s degree in sports and exercise studies while at Ohio State.