Nova Southeastern University Director of Athletics Michael Mominey announced that Ben Hewitt will return to the Sharks and head up the NSU men's and women's swimming programs as head coach.
"After a very competitive national search, it became clear that Coach Hewitt is the right choice to be the next leader of the Sharks swimming program," Mominey said. "His passion is very evident and I look forward to him instilling his own vision for our highly competitive student-athletes in the program. It's great to have him coming back "home" as our new head coach."
A former assistant coach with the program, Hewitt returns to NSU after serving three years as the women's head coach at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. During his time with the Tigers, he led the squad to three consecutive NCAA Division III Championship appearances as well as third-place finishes each year at the North Coast Athletic Conference Championships.
In 2014-15, the team's 14th-place showing was their highest at nationals in seven years. All told, Hewitt's swimmers have earned 14 All-American honors, the 2016 NCAC Swimmer of the Year award and broke 13 school records. Out of the pool, the group had at least a 3.3 GPA or higher each of the last five semesters and were recognized as a CSCAA Scholar All-America team.
"I am humbled by the opportunity to return to NSU and I want to thank Mike Mominey and Kelley Kish for entrusting me with this exceptional responsibility," Hewitt said. "I also want to thank Hollie Bonewit-Cron for her leadership, guidance and trust in me as her assistant coach. She did a tremendous job in building the program for future success so I certainly have big shoes to fill. This program has a dynamic group of student-athletes that I am eager to connect with and develop. We will continue to be a program where a student-athlete can perform at a very high level, but also be someone who loves their sport, serves their teammates and cares about the work they do every day and I can't wait to get started."
Serving as the assistant for both the men's and women's teams, under Hollie Bonewit-Cron from 2010-13, Hewitt helped mentor 24 All-Americans and was part of three Sunshine State Conference Championship-winning teams. NSU also had two top-10 team marks and three individual champions at the NCAA DII National Championship during his tenure.
Hewitt also helped Bonewit-Cron start the NSU swim programs in 2010 and played an integral part in the teams' first-year successes. During that first year of NCAA competition, Hewitt helped guide the men's program to the first-ever Sunshine State Conference title award and helped mentor eight swimmers that advanced to the 2011 NCAA Championships in their first year of competition.
Prior to coming to NSU, Hewitt was an assistant on two different staffs, at Wabash College and Kenyon College. In two stints at Wabash, he dealt with recruiting and developing training groups. In 2010, the team had two NCAA qualifiers and four school records. At Kenyon in 2007, the team won both the men's and women's DIII National Championships, and 16 event titles at the national meet.
As an alumnus of Wabash, Hewitt was a four-year member of the swim team that included All-Conference honors, the team's captaincy his senior season, and their MVP award as a junior. He received his bachelor's degree from the school in Spanish.
Hewitt is a member of the American Swimming Coaches Association and College Swimming Coaches Association of America, and is Level IV certified by ASCA as well. He was honored by the ASCA in 2015 with the Coach of Excellence Award, and, while at NSU, received the Jean Freeman Memorial Scholarship in 2013.
