Brian Loeffler, a former four-year letterwinner on Loyola's swimming and diving team, is one of the longest-standing coaches at Loyola and enters his 30th season as head coach of the swimming and diving teams in 2021-22.
Loeffler, who graduated from Loyola in 1991, has been a part of the Greyhounds program for the last 35 years, spending 1987-1991 as a student-athlete, 1991-1992 as an assistant coach and 1992 through current day as the head coach.
During a 2020-21 season filled with challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Loeffler’s teams still managed to excel in the pool. The Greyhounds won 17 Patriot League weekly awards, set 15 new school records at the final meet of the season and reached seven NCAA ‘B’ cut times.
Six of those ‘B’ times came from Lily Mead and Max Verheyen. Mead topped the Patriot League in three events during her debut collegiate season, while Verheyen led the conference in the 200 IM.
Loyola continued its rise up the Patriot League rankings during the last full season in 2019-20, with the men’s and women’s programs combining for 17 school records at the conference meet. Loeffler was recognized as the Patriot League Men’s Coach of the Year after the men’s team rose to third in the conference standings. Jimmy Hayburn (50 free) and Devin Cronin (100 breast) also claimed individual titles, with Cronin becoming the first Loyola woman to earn gold at the Patriot League championships.
That duo made up two of Loyola’s six All-Patriot League honorees, which was also a program high since joining the conference in 2013-14. Emma Schouten repeated as a first team honoree, while Verheyen also landed on the first team and added Patriot League Rookie of the Meet status.
Schouten became the first Loyola woman to earn first team All-Patriot League accolades the previous year in 2019, as Loyola managed four all-conference honorees overall. Loyola also had three All-Patriot League swimmers in 2018. Senior Ben Cono led the way that winter, as he culminated a historic career by placing 17th nationally in both the 100 and 200 breast. During his time at Loyola, Cono was named Patriot League Male Swimmer of the Meet (2018), won four Patriot League championships (including three-straight in the 100 breast) and became the first Greyhound swimmer under Loeffler to qualify for the NCAA Division I Championships.
Loeffler’s divers have also experienced national success, with three qualifying for the NCAA Zone A Diving Championships over the past six completed seasons.
Academically, Loeffler’s teams have consistently stood out during his tenure. Loyola has received 16 Patriot League All-Academic Team selections since joining the conference, including a record of five honorees in 2020 alone. The men’s and women’s squads also combined for a remarkable 64 Patriot League Academic Honor Roll recipients last spring. The 33 men’s honorees led the conference, while the 31 women’s selections were ranked second overall.
Prior to joining the Patriot League, Loeffler led Loyola to eight Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference titles - four with the women's team (1993, '94, '95, `96) and four with the men's team (1995, 2009, '10, `11). He was also named the MAAC Coach of the Year six times (men - 2007, '08, '11; women - 2002, `05, '08).
Loeffler has had six male and four female swimmers earn Most Outstanding Swimmer of the Year honors, while one male and one female have been named the league's Most Outstanding Diver of the Year under Loeffler's guidance. Brennan Morris, a 2013 graduate, won 15 MAAC championships and collected three-straight MAAC Men’s Swimmer of the Year awards from 2010-12.
As a team, Loeffler helped the Greyhounds remain among the top programs in the MAAC throughout his tenure. His men's team posted a top-five finish in 20 of the 22 championships. On the women's side, the Greyhounds were in the top three throughout 20 of the 22 conference meets and never finished below fourth. In addition, Loeffler has helped his teams break all 14 individual school records on both the men's and women's side, in addition to all eight relay records.
Extremely active in Paralympic swimming on the national stage, Loeffler was honored as the Paralympic National Coach of the Year in 2014. He received the honor after guiding four Paralympic athletes to one world and 10 American records that year. McKenzie Coan, a 2018 graduate, earned the fifth and sixth medals of her storied career at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games. She added three golds at the 2016 games in Rio.
During his swimming career at Loyola, Loeffler competed in the backstroke, butterfly and individual medley events. He graduated from the Evergreen campus in 1991 as the school-record holder in several events, including the 400-yard and 400-meter medley relays. Loeffler was also a member of 200-meter medley relay teams which recorded eight of the top-10 times in school history.
A 1991 graduate of Loyola, Loeffler earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Management Information Systems before earning his MBA in 1994. He is a longtime Baltimore native who graduated from Calvert Hall College High School in 1987. Loeffler and his wife, Sarah, reside in Baltimore with their sons, Sam and Tim, and daughter, Lucy.
