ACC Coach of the Year Kasprzak Leads Groundbreaking Year for Pitt Diving
Josh Rowntree
Katie Kasprzak led the University of Pittsburgh diving team to a successful year, with a two-time ACC champion Cameron Cash, a two-time ACC silver medalist Dylan Reed, 12 NCAA Zone A championship qualifiers and six NCAA championship qualifiers.
Kasprzak also was named the ACC Men’s Diving Coach of the Year, becoming the first female to win any of the major ACC swimming and diving coaching awards.
Kasprzak isn’t just building champions at Pitt; she also is paving the way for women in the sport. Kasprzak was the only female head diving coach at the 2024 ACC championships and one of just three female diving head coaches with both male and female athletes competing at the 2024 NCAA championships.
For the last few years, while serving as a female coach of a Division I men’s diving team, Kasprzak often heard talk about balancing coaching with raising a family. Now in her
seventh year of coaching at Pitt, Kasprzak is an example of how you can be both a great coach and a great mother.
What’s interesting and important to understand is the path that took Kasprzak to where she currently sits as the top ACC men’s diving coach. A native of Harpenden, England, Kasprzak grew up the daughter of diving coaches and judges.
“It’s funny growing up as a kid when your parents are diving coaches,” she says. “It can be a little intense. One thing I knew for sure is that I didn’t want to be a diving coach.”
Kasprzak began diving at age 5. Then, at age 17, she was thrown for a loop when a ruptured eardrum abruptly and prematurely ended her diving career.
“It was a blessing in disguise,” she says. “At that point, I was a really good junior diver, but I did not have the physical attributes to be a top senior international diver. So, at that time, it forced me to stop diving, and I didn’t have to make the decision to retire myself. It made that decision a lot easier.”
She rerouted, starting a path toward becoming a strength and conditioning coach. She graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in sports science and physiology. But diving kept calling her, and the call got too loud to ignore.
She worked as a talent scout in England, as a mentor for young divers and coaches and as the technical operations manager for the London 2012 Summer Olympics.
“That was a phenomenal experience,” she says. “I spent about a year and a half preparing just for that one meet.”
When the contract ended, she capitalized on an opportunity and was hired to work under Drew Johansen, coach of the U.S. diving team for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics, who was then coaching at Duke University.
“He sponsored my visa, and I came out to coach club [diving] for him,” Kasprzak says. “I got to experience collegiate sport. I knew it was big, and I wanted to see what it was like. Until I actually got here, I had no idea how big it really was.”
Kasprzak soon was hooked. She ran the club diving program at Duke for nearly five years, leading divers to 10 national titles at youth levels while producing some of the nation’s top diving recruits.
In 2017, she came to Pitt, bringing with her a leadership model centered on total development and a focus on the individual needs of her student-athletes, both at the pool and away from it.
“When I sit down and talk with my athletes, no matter how bad the situation is, I always look at what can we control,” she says, a direct callback to the adversity she encountered at 17. “What’s the positive in this?”
You can be successful in our sport and you can be a great mother. You can also do it while being compassionate and caring. It doesn’t take one personality to become a head coach.Katie Kasprzak
In 2024, the biggest positive yet of Kasprzak’s career occurred. She was named the ACC Men’s Diving Coach of the Year, becoming the first woman ever to receive the recognition.
“Across swimming and diving, there are just not as many women working in the sport, even fewer women working in head coaching roles and even fewer women working with men’s teams,” she says. “For me, it doesn’t necessarily make sense, because there are a lot more female swimmers swimming collegiately than men and because there are a significant number of women’s-only programs. And a lot of them are coached by men. [This award shows] that women can be just as—if not more—successful in the sport.”
1st Female Coach
To be named ACC Men’s Diving Coach of the Year
1 of 3 Female Diving Head Coaches
With participants In both the Men’s and Women’s 2024 NCAA Championships
She’s done it while she and her husband, Alex, raise their two daughters, Elva and Francesca.
“Being a female and having a family doesn’t mean that it’s a handicap,” she says. “But right now, it’s harder for us to get those jobs. [There are] more Division II, Division III and club female coaches, but when you get into the Division I level and the NCAA championships, there just aren’t very many of us.
“You can be successful in our sport and you can be a great mother. You can also do it while being compassionate and caring. It doesn’t take one personality to become a head coach.”
What helped to propel Kasprzak to her award were the performances of Dylan Reed, who won a pair of silver medals at the ACC championships, and Cameron Cash, the ACC Men’s Diver of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year and a College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America All-American on the 3 meter.
“He knows what he wants to achieve, and he still has a good time,” says Kasprzak of Cash, who also is an excellent biology student with plans to take the Medical College Admission Test. “He’s really good at demonstrating to other student-athletes that to be successful, you need to train and study with intensity. He’s there to support his teammates, and he has large goals [that he’s] going to work toward. He’s very dedicated, motivating and fun to work with.”
Kasprzak takes pride in the overall characteristics of her divers. The team is just as strong in the classroom as it is on the diving boards and platforms. It’s her desire to have all-around people come out of her program, and developing terrific divers is an added bonus.
“Winning ACC Diving Coach of the Year, what Cam achieved, what Dylan achieved—that was all really exciting,” Kasprzak says. “But the biggest thing I tell my athletes all the time is yes, we want standout performances, but really our focus is what we’re doing every day to make our program better and how we manage our day to day in those successes.”
Kasprzak’s achievement this past season is one for the Pitt history books. It’s also one that should serve as a groundbreaking accomplishment that proves a great deal about what anyone with talent and ability can do in sports.
“I just think it’s a huge milestone to say that women can do it,” she says. “We can coach men, and I can inspire men to be the best that they can be. It’s really important.”