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Jim Johnson returns to Pacific Lutheran as swimming head coach after missing the 2008-09 season while battling cancer. With renewed vigor, Johnson enters his 31st season leading the Lutes program.
Johnson achieved a milestone in his PLU coaching career on Nov. 12, 2005, when the Lutes defeated Pacific, giving him his 300th career victory at Pacific Lutheran.
PLU women's teams under Johnson's direction placed in the top five at the NAIA national meet 11 out of 15 seasons and never finished lower than eighth during that time. The Lute women were also Northwest Conference champions from 1983-92, and again in 1996. The Lutes were also undefeated in conference dual meets from 1983-92.
Coach Johnson took over an embattled men's program midway through the 1979 season and turned things around almost immediately, winning the conference championship in 1981. The men have worn the conference crown seven times and, while the school was an NAIA member, placed in the top 20 at nationals every year under Johnson's tutelage.
The NAIA Coaches Association and the College Swim Coaches Association both named Johnson the 1985 NAIA Women's Coach of the Year. He is past president of the NAIA Swim Coaches Association and former board member of the College Swim Coaches Association. In addition, the Rocky Mountain College graduated earned NAIA District I Coach of the Years honors four times.
Johnson is certified as a Level V coach by the American Swim Coaches Association. He has coached 60 NAIA All-Americans and 35 academic All-Americans while at PLU. He was the Northwest Conference Men's Coach of the Year in 1992 and the NWC Women's Coach of the Year in 1994 and 1996.
Allison Kolp is in her sixth season as a Pacific Lutheran swimming assistant coach. Last year, she served as interim head coach of the men's and women's swimming teams during the medical absence of long-time Lutes head coach Jim Johnson. Under Kolp's direction, the PLU men placed fourth and the Lutes women finished fifth in the Northwest Conference championship meet.
Kolp was a champion sprinter at Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y., from where she graduated in 2002 with a degree in Health Science and in 2003 with a Master's of Science in Physical Therapy.
A native of Falmouth, Maine, Kolp is employed as a physical
therapist in Puyallup.
Mike Turcott is in his second season as an assistant coach with the PLU swim team.
Turcott, who returned to Pacific Lutheran more than two decades are initially leaving to become a state trooper, graduated in 2008 with a degree in sociology while also finishing a minor in Aquatics. He swam for the Lutes from 2006-08, and is a member of the Poseidon Aquatics Club in U.S. Masters Swimming.
Turcott is a Washington State Patrol lieutenant and lives in
Tenino.
Patrick Carlisle is in his second season as an assistant
coach with the PLU swim team. He swam for the Lutes from 2004-08.
