Just four years removed from eighth-place finishes in the ACC Championships, the NC State men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams are ranked No. 3 and No. 12 in the nation respectively and are making a strong push at the postseason.
The team’s outstanding turnaround has been orchestrated by head coach Braden Holloway.
This year marks Holloway’s fourth season as NC State’s head swimming and diving coach, but Holloway’s ties with the Wolfpack go back further than just a few years. Between 1998 and 2001, Holloway swam for the NC State team where he earned many honors and continued to pursue the sport that he started at a young age.
“I did a bunch of sports when I was a kid,” Holloway said, “but I was just better at swimming, so I gravitated toward it.”
Once Holloway discovered his talent and passion, he dedicated himself to swimming and found himself a member of the Wolfpack, where he was a five-time All-American, won back-to-back ACC titles in the 100-yd backstroke and was an Olympic qualifier for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
“Coaching didn’t come up until the end of my career; I didn’t know what I really wanted to do and I was thinking about the sport a lot,” Holloway said. “I helped out here before I graduated, and I liked it.”
After several seasons coaching at the University of the South and Virginia Tech, Holloway found his way back to his alma mater in 2011 and continued to find success with the Wolfpack, this time as a head coach. Not only did Holloway earn the 2013 ACC men’s coach of the year, but he has coached 43 All-ACC swimmers, 26 individual All-Americans, five individual ACC champions and eight ACC relay champions.
Starting out as the head coach of swimming and diving, Holloway had several goals he wanted to achieve for the program’s future. He understood the potential of the program had and wanted to tap into it and create a consistent winning culture.
“Once we got the staff in place, the main goal was to get them to believe that they are better than they are” Holloway said. “It had been a stretch of some tough times, and to get them to believe that they could compete within the ACC.”
When it comes to swimming, many people think about buoyancy, but coach Holloway said he thinks about balance: balance between competition and fun, balance between his coach-to-swimmer relationship and balance between his work life and family life.
“He has a lot of energy and a lot of passion,” senior Michael Camper said. “He shares the history with us too, having swam here. He knows the energy and history behind the team and he brings it out every day.”
At his practices, there is an air of relaxed fun, intense training and incredible work ethic. Echoes of laughter, coaching commands or conversation bounce off the walls of Casey Natatorium as Holloway leads his team practices.
“He is very goofy on deck,” sophomore Alexia Zevnik said. “He dances around and is always trying to make everything fun. He’s serious when he has to be, but he’s all about having fun and getting better.”
Holloway also focuses on building strong relationships with his swimmers that transcend beyond the pool deck. As swimmers enter and leave the program, friendships evolve and close relationships form.
Camper has been with Holloway since the start of his tenure as head coach and is a three-time captain under his reign.
“I have a very strong relationship with Braden,” Camper said. “He’s helped me through a lot, especially this past year with injuries, so we’re very close.”
Despite his love of the sport and his team, Holloway faces challenges as every coach does.
“It’s not the easiest sport, and there’s a lot of different personalities to manage,” Holloway said. “You have to juggle a lot of ups and downs and that’s always a challenge. There’s always some lows that come with some highs.”
When Braden leaves the pool he goes home to his four young children who are just now starting to learn to swim.
“As soon as I get home, it’s game on,” Holloway said. “It’s really easy to get my mind away from swimming when I go home to my wife and my kids.”
Although balance is not always easy to find, Holloway has figured it out in many aspects of his life and with coaching. NC State’s program continues to develop and increase in strength with Holloway at the helm.
