June 26, 2002
Looze Chosen to Lead Men's Swimming Program
Bloomington, Ind. - The Indiana University Athletics Department today is announcing that Ray Looze Jr. has been named as the eighth men's swimming coach in school history. He takes over a program that has captured six NCAA team championships and 23 Big Ten titles during its illustrious history.
Looze, 35, comes to Indiana after spending the last five seasons as Head Swim Coach at the University of Pacific. He took over the reigns of the men's swimming program on August 16, 1997, and beginning in 1998, he assumed the role as head coach for both the men's and women's swimming programs. Looze was named the Big West Conference Men's Swimming Coach-of-the-Year in each of the last four seasons. This past year, Looze led both teams to Big West Conference championships and subsequently was named the Big West Coach-of-the-Year in both men's and women's swimming. The Pacific women's team, which featured three All-America selections, followed its Big West title with a 15th-place finish at the 2002 NCAA Championships.
"This is a dream job," said Looze. "In my opinion, and the opinion of many other coaches, this is one of the premier jobs in the country. This is an opportunity of a lifetime. I like the challenge that is ahead of me and I am ready for it."
"Our mission is to prepare student-athletes for championship competition," said Director of Athletics Michael McNeely. "Our mission is to prepare student-athletes for championship competition. This means performance as a champion on the playing field, in the classroom and in life. We are fully confident that Ray will provide outstanding leadership for successfully building upon the IU swimming program's championship history."
Prior to his tenure at Pacific, Looze served as the head coach at the Peddie School in Hightstown, N.J., from 1993-95, where he led the storied prep school to Swimming World's mythical national championship. As a men's swimming graduate assistant at the University of Texas, he was part of another national championship team as he helped the Longhorns capture the 1991 NCAA title. He also worked as the assistant men's swimming coach at Harvard from 1992-93. At the club level, Looze has coached the Phoenix (Ariz.) Swim Club from 1995-96 and Tiger Aquatics in Stockton, Calif., during his tenure at Pacific.
Success has followed Looze throughout his coaching career. In only a short period of time, the University of Southern California product took Pacific's program to new heights. After taking over the men's program in 1997, he guided his 1999 squad to a second-place finish at the Big West Championships and earned Big West Coach-of-the-Year accolades for his efforts. In 2001-02, Pacific snapped UC Santa Barbara's string of 23-consecutive conference championships and earned its first title in men's swimming since 1974. At the same meet, the Pacific women's team won its first-ever Big West title, outscoring second-place University of California - Santa Barbara by 112 points.
As a student-athlete at Southern California, Looze was a standout in and out of the pool. He became the first non-football playing Trojan in school history to earn GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America honors. In 1989, he was recognized as the school's Scholar-Athlete of the Year. He was also an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship winner and received recognition as a finalist for the 1989 Rhodes Scholarship and the 1990 NCAA Walter Byers Award.
As a Trojan, Looze was a four-time All-America selection in swimming and placed among the top-10 in eight NCAA Championships events. At the 1990 NCAA Championships, he finished in second place in the 400 individual medley and ultimately earned a spot on the 1990 U.S. Goodwill Games squad. He finished the 1990 campaign ranked among the world's best in the 200-meter breaststroke and the 200-meter and 400-meter individual medleys. At the United States Olympic Trials in Indianapolis in 1992, Looze just missed qualifying for the Olympic Games by placing third in the 400 individual medley and fifth in the 200 IM.
Looze graduated summa *** laude with a Bachelor's degree in business finance from the University of Southern California and earned a Master's degree from the School of Education at the University of Texas at Austin. He and his wife, Kandis, have two children, a three-year-old son, Bryce Ryan (7/30/98), and a two-year-old daughter, MacKenzie Kay (1/13/00).
Indiana University has won six NCAA Championships in the sport of men's swimming & diving, the fifth most in collegiate history and 23 Big Ten men's team titles, the second most in conference history. A total of 161 Hoosiers have earned All-America status in swimming and diving while 79 of those student-athletes have won an individual NCAA crown and a total of 191 swimmers have captured Big Ten titles. Fifty Hoosier swimmers and divers, including the likes of Mark Spitz and Gary Hall Sr., have represented their countries at the Olympic Games.
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Pacific's Looze given job to carry on Indiana's swimming tra
