New UA swim and dive coach Ben Loorz and AD Desiree Reed-Francois bonded during pandemic at UNLV (2024)

When Ben Loorz got a text from Arizona athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois, asking him if he was interested in being a candidate for the Wildcats’ open swimming and diving coach position, it was a no-brainer.

As he said Monday morning at McKale Center in his introductory press conference, “It’s the University of Arizona swimming and diving, of course. How can I how can I say ‘no,’ to an invitation like that?”

Loorz, who was most recently the coach of the men’s and women’s teams at UNLV, got to say ‘Yes,’ again to Reed-Francois, when she asked if he would be Arizona’s new head coach after a search that took less than two weeks.

“The amount of amazing and divers that come through this place over the last decades,” Loorz said, “it’s an honor to stand here,” Loorz said.

Loorz replaces Augie Busch, who coached both Wildcat teams for seven seasons. The UA announced May 3 it would not bring Busch back in 2024-25. Busch previously served as an assistant under his father, UA legend Frank Busch, who led the UA to dual men’s and women’s national crowns in 2008.

Loorz comes to Tucson after leading UNLV men’s and women’s teams to five conference championships in eight years. He was also named WAC Coach of the Year (for the men’s team) four consecutive years and was the Mountain West’s Coach of the Year for the women’s team this season; the UNLV men’s and women’s teams compete in two different leagues.

After introducing Loorz Monday morning, Reed-Francois stood off to the side, beaming at her first hire at Arizona. She had found the perfect person to take over the program. He checked off all the boxes, including putting the athletes first. Before she started interviewing candidates for this role, she talked to all the UA swimmers to understand what they wanted in their next coach.

Reed-Francois had seen Loorz up close when she was AD at UNLV from 2017-21. Reed-Francois and Loorz formed a tight bond during that time.

“Desiree led an athletic department, and I led a team through the pandemic,” Loorz said. “It was hard in swimming, like a lot of sports. A lot of pools shut down. You couldn’t do much. To keep student-athletes motivated and (understanding) that this was worth it during that period of time, it took a lot.

“I know Desiree worked really hard and I worked really hard. I think that understanding what this takes to just lay it all down for our student-athletes, I think that that was something we bonded over.”

Loorz added that he likes her leadership style.

“Her expectations are high and that’s something that is a good fit for me. I like that she is student-athlete centered and focused.”

One of his former swimmers came by the pool last week to say goodbye and relayed a story about how he would stop by Reed-Francois’ office several times when he was a senior, and she would always stop what she was doing to talk to him.

“That meant a lot to me,” the former swimmer said. “That was the only athletic director I had in my career who operated like that.”

Loorz said that the key to his coaching philosophy comes down to teaching.

“I believe that all of our student-athletes need to be well-taught, well-trained, and well-coached,” Loorz said. “There’s a lot of Division I programs out there — they just recruit talent to train the talent. That can work to a certain extent, but I think it falls short of what the true potential of any athletic program should be.

“We’re going to take the time to teach your athletes not only techniques,” he added. “Just how to go about their lives and do business better. Take the time to coach them, which means taking care of them, the whole person, and we’re going to train really hard.”

Loorz has a few weeks to get his staff together set as the recruiting period starts June 15, which coincidentally is the same time as the U.S. Olympic Trials for the upcoming Games in Paris, starting at the end of July.

The current staff is staying on to continue to coach any UA Olympic hopefuls and maintain stability. It is not known at this point if Loorz will retain any of them.

Loorz said he pushes his staff hard and will need individuals who balance out his personality, along with Reed-Francois’ new UA standard of being “hungry, humble, smart, hardworking.”

“I need people who can see around corners and are willing to really put the time in,” Loorz said. “When I was at UNLV, I had, just anecdotally eyeballing it, the most diverse staff in NCAA swimming and diving. And that’s something that’s important to me. Diversity in all ways, not necessarily just racially, ethnically, but like, coaches (who are) different ages, different genders and different personality styles.

“I think that the student athletes need that,” he said. “A diverse staff where every person that is part of team can find somebody to connect with.”

As the first hire of the Reed-Francois era, she didn’t take this one lightly, even if the search seemed quick; it was less than two weeks. First, she started by talking to all the swimmers to get their input in forming a candidate profile of what qualities they wanted in their next coach. Then, she and a committee that included former UA softball coach and ex-interim AD Mike Candrea and current swim assistant coach Amanda Beard got to work.

Beard, the former UA standout — an NCAA champion and seven-time Olympic medalist — reached out to her contacts around the swimming world to find out about Loorz.

“I couldn’t find one person who said anything bad about him,” Beard said.

“I said that to him today, and he’s like, ‘Well, there’s people out there.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I haven’t found one yet.’ The people that I reached out to, to vet who he is, his coaching styles and personality, all that kind of stuff, had great things to say about him and they’re very respected (and) have been in the swimming community for 30 plus years,” she said. “I trusted their feedback. The times I’ve gotten to talk to him have been great, positive, cares about the student athletes, which is just going to be a wonderful thing for these kiddos.”