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Having an idea of coaches that would be a good fit for a department in case changes are needed is always a good idea. Arizona athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois certainly had an idea of who might be a good fit for the Wildcats’ swim and dive program.
“I was honored that Desireé reached out when they began their search,” Loorz said.
He didn’t hesitate to express his interest—and his wife was pretty excited, too.
“I know Desireé looks for the very best in the business,” Loorz said. “And when I got that text a few weeks ago, I was just like, I tell my wife right away. I was like, ‘Hey, Desireé just texted.’ And I won’t tell you exactly what her response was. It was like, ‘Whoa, what an honor.’ It means a lot to me, for sure.”
Reed-Francois’ leadership style is one reason Loorz was attracted to Arizona.
“Desireé runs a professional ship,” Loorz said. “Her expectations are high, and that’s something that’s a good fit for me. And I liked that she is student-athlete centered and focused. I was talking to one of my alumni last week, actually, who came by the pool to say goodbye. This young man was a junior when I took over, he was a senior and a post-grad athlete when Desireé was in charge. And he came by to say goodbye, and he was like, “I really like Desireé.’ I was like, ‘Tell me. I didn’t know that you had that much of a relationship with her.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, I stopped by her office several times during my senior year, and every time she stopped what she was doing to talk to me.’ He’s like, ‘That meant a lot.’ He’s like, ‘That was the only athletic director I had in my career who operated that way.’”
While Loorz was hired by her predecessor Tina Kunzer-Murphy ahead of the 2016 season, Reed-Francois was his boss from 2017-21. She knew who and what she was getting with him. It fit the profile the search committee had developed.
“When we developed this candidate profile, what we were looking for is someone with the character to be able to lead these young men and these young women,” Reed-Francois said. “And character, for us, is defined as selfless, smart, hardworking, and to have that integrity to be able to do what you say you’re going to do. That is what we expect of all of our staff members. And as far as the competence, we needed someone who could see our student-athletes as more than a time, someone who recognizes that these are someone’s sons and daughters with hopes and dreams. Someone who could build culture, build that championship culture, but culture always starts with people. We look for someone that was a proven winner, someone that is a tireless and relentless recruiter, and someone who can really thrive in the modern era of college sports. In coach Ben Loorz, we found just that person.”
As for the profile, it wasn’t just Reed-Francois who developed it. The committee included long-time Wildcats like former softball coach Mike Candrea and former Olympic medalist Amanda Beard, but they weren’t even the only ones who had input into what kind of person the future program leader should be.
“When we were developing our candidate profile, we met with our entire team,” Reed-Francois said. “We had every single student-athlete speak, and they provided what they were looking for in their next head coach. Their feedback was incredibly critical.”
Many of those student-athletes will be drifting between two coaching staffs for a while. Since it is an Olympic year, several will be going to Olympic trials. Loorz said he will be there to represent the program, but the previous Arizona staff has been training these athletes for the Olympics. They must stay involved in that process.
Loorz will get started immediately with the planning for his new staff, though. It is the most important component if Arizona is going to return to its status as a national championship contender.
“We need to have the right staff in place,” Loorz said. “That’s a really critical piece, the people. I’m blown away already by the support staff that surrounds not only swim and dive but all of our athletic teams—from the dietician, the strength and conditioning staff, the academic advisors. I got a chance to meet a lot of them today. That’s a huge piece of the puzzle, but the swimming and diving coaches, making sure that we’ve got a team that’s gonna motivate but also challenge the student-athletes in the right way and care for them. And make sure that as they fall down, they get picked up, and as they succeed, they don’t get to rest on those laurels.”
Loorz is taking over a program that won national titles in both men’s and women’s competition as recently as 2008 but has taken a recent downturn. Last season, the men’s team finished 27th at the NCAA championship meet and the women did not score.
At UNLV, his program was headed in the opposite direction. He had been named the conference coach of the year in both the WAC and Mountain West. He is a four-time WAC coach of the year on the men’s side, taking the honor every year from 2021 through 2024. He was named the MWC coach of the year in 2021 on the women’s side.
The UNLV men’s team has been the champion or runner-up in the WAC every year since 2018, two years after Loorz took the helm. The women’s team won the 2021 MWC championship and has been the MWC runner-up the past two seasons.