Our Ambassadors
Todd DeSorbo – Head Coach – University of Virginia
- Head Coach – University of Virginia
- Men’s & Women’s Swimming & Diving
- 2024 US OLYMPIC TEAM HEAD WOMEN’S COACH
- 2022 US WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM HEAD COACH
- 2021 US OLYMPIC TEAM ASST COACH
Todd DeSorbo has led Virginia to four consecutive women’s NCAA Championships in his six years since being named head coach in 2017. In the summer of 2024 he will represent the United States at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris as the women’s team head coach.
Under DeSorbo, the Cavaliers have surged to national prominence. UVA became the first program in ACC history to win an NCAA title in 2021. Virginia’s women have won four consecutive NCAA Championships (2021, 2022, 2023, & 2024) and the men have finished in the Top-10 in three-straight national championships. Numerous records have fallen for the Cavaliers, including seven events that saw American, NCAA & US Open records set in 2022. UVA also set an American and ACC record in the 200 free relay on the men’s side in 2022.
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Entering the 2023-24 season, Virginia has set 16 women’s school records and 14 men’s school records, improving many of those in each of DeSorbo’s six years. The Cavaliers have amassed 283 All-American swims, 28 NCAA individual and relay titles, 67 ACC individual and relay wins and a .732 dual meet winning percentage under DeSorbo’s tutelage. In total, UVA has 43 individual and 24 relay ACC titles along with 18 NCAA individual titles and 10 NCAA relay championships.
The Virginia women have won four NCAA Championships, two Honda Sport Awards, five ACC team titles, four ACC Swimmer of the Year Awards and four ACC Freshman of the Year honors. UVA’s men have recorded their best finishes at the ACC Championship in eight years and three-straight top-10 finishes at NCAAs, a first in program history.
Nine American record swims, a second-straight NCAA Championship, three Olympic medals and seven World Championship medals highlighted the 2021-22 season for DeSorbo’s team. Virginia’s women won their second NCAA title with seven individual and four relay wins. DeSorbo was named CSCAA Women’s Coach of the Year and Kate Douglass earned Swimmer of the Year. Douglass and Alex Walsh both won three NCAA individual titles.
DeSorbo was tabbed the Team USA Women’s Swimming Head Coach for the 2022 FINA World Championships in Budapest. He helped USA set the record for most medals at a World Championships (45) in a single sport. UVA totaled 75 All-America honors, 11 NCAA wins, 47 All-ACC honors and 15 ACC titles during the season.
In his fourth year at the helm of the program, DeSorbo guided the women’s team to its first national championship and the first national title for an ACC team in the sport in NCAA history. Virginia won six national titles in individual and relay events at the 2021 NCAA Championships, the most ever by an ACC program. The Cavaliers had 12 athletes named to CSCAA All-America Teams (10 first team and two second team). Virginia also won its third women’s ACC Championship in four years, and league-record 17th overall.
The Cavalier women won their 16th ACC title and second ACC title under DeSorbo during the 2019-20 season as the women set an ACC record for most points scored at the conference championships. Paige Madden was named the Swimmer of the Meet and Swimmer of the Year after winning five ACC titles. The performance by the women’s team earned DeSorbo the title of 2020 ACC Women’s Swim Coach of the Year. The women’s team set two ACC records during the season from Kate Douglass in the 200 IM and the women’s 200 medley relay. Douglass was named the ACC Women’s Freshman Swimmer of the Year.
The men’s team finished second at the ACC Championships, recording the program’s best finish since 2013. Ted Schubert won a pair of ACC titles in the individual medley events to lead the team. The Cavaliers finished the shorten season, due to the coronavirus, with 23 All-ACC honors from the women’s team and six honors from the men’s team.
In DeSorbo’s second year at the helm, the women’s team recorded its third-best finish in school history, placing sixth with 188 points, while the men’s team recorded its best finish since 2011, placing 10th with 106 points. The Cavaliers had a combined 27 All-America swims.
Prior to UVA, DeSorbo served as the associate head coach at North Carolina State for six seasons. During his tenure, DeSorbo coached American Olympic gold medalist Ryan Held (2016 Rio 4×100 free relay), USA Swimming national champion Justin Ress and NCAA Champions in the 4×100 free relay (2016) and 4×200 free relay (2017).
In the summer of 2016, DeSorbo coached three athletes to the Rio Olympic Games, as Held qualified for the U.S.A.’s 4x100m freestyle relay, Soeren Dahl qualified for Denmark’s a 4x200m freestyle relay and Simonas Bilis qualified the 50m and 100m freestyle. Held made history as he helped the United States win a gold medal in the relay. He posted a split of 47.73 alongside teammates Caleb Dressel, Michael Phelps and Nathan Adrian to notch a time of 3:12.38.
DeSorbo holds two accounting degrees from UNCW, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1999 and a master’s degree in 2000. A native of Salisbury, N.C., DeSorbo is married to Lauren Suggs. They have one son, Jack, and one daughter, Cate.
For a complete listing of DeSorbo’s extraordinary career accomplishments, see his bio, https://virginiasports.com/sports/swimming/roster/season/2023-24/coach/todd-desorbo/
Cullen Jones
As an advocate for water safety, I am always in full support of establishing a place for people to learn to swim. As a survivor of a near drowning myself, I have made it my platform to teach the importance of learn to swim. My goal is for no parent to live the fear my parents felt the day I almost drowned. I was an eager five-year-old with my parent at Dorney Park. My family decided to get on the largest ride. My mother knew I had not had swim lessons but they felt confident with the lifeguards and both of them present I would be fine.
I proceeded down the ride, after my father. Yelling to my heart’s content, I crashed in to the pool of water at the end of the ride and flipped upside down. At this same time, my father was handing his innertube to the next patient rider. Unable to lift myself up I began to drown. Thanks to the quick response of the Dorney Park lifeguards, they pulled me out of the water within 30 seconds. Unfortunately, I was unconscious and had to be revived. I woke up and said, “What’s the next ride we were going on” because I was a 5-year-old at a water park!
Although this story has a happy ending, so many families across the U.S. do not have the same outcome. Swimming is a life skill and it has always been my mission to teach our country’s citizens the importance of learn to swim. 64% percent of African Americans, 54% of Latin Americans and 40% of Caucasian Americans have little to no swimming ability. Drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. The drowning rate in the U.S. is at an epidemic rate and places like the PhilAquatics are developed to treat and combat this need. This facility will help the community in many ways and on many levels and I support it becoming a reality in the years ahead.
To those learn to swim advocates, thank you for your work in serving the Philly Area. You are saving lives!
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Fast Facts
- Four-time Olympic medalist
- First African American swimmer to hold a world record
- 13-time medalists (seven gold) at major international competitions
Cullen Jones is a four-time Olympic medalist and the first African American swimmer to hold a world record. At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Jones swam on the legendary world-record setting 4x100 freestyle relay team.
In 2012, Jones won gold as Team USA’s anchor in the 4x100 medley relay, silver in the 4x100 freestyle relay and individual silver in the 50m freestyle. In total Cullen accounts for 13 U.S. medals (seven gold) at major international competitions.
Jones married his wife, Rupi, in 2017 and she gave birth to their son, Ayvn, in 2019.
Born on Leap day of 19842 in the Bronx borough of New York City, Jones moved to Irvington, New Jersey, while in elementary school. He learned to swim after he was rescued from a near-drowning at a splash-down pol at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom in Pennsylvania when he was five years old. He became an age-group swimmer at Metro Express, a club team at the Jewish Community Center in West Orange, New Jersey under head coach Ed Nessel. Jones later switched teams to the Jersey Gators Swim Club in Cranford under Lou Petroziello. Jones graduated from Saint Benedict’s Preparatory School in Newark in 2002. While there, he swam for coach Glenn Cassidy and set numerous Essex County swimming records.
Jones attended North Carolina State University, where he studied English and swam for the NC State Wolfpack swimming and diving team in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) competition from 2003 to 2006.
He turned professional in the summer of 2006, after signing with Nike and burst onto the scene shortly after at the 2006 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships where he set a meet record in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 21.84 seconds. He also swam a leg (split of 47.96) in the world record breaking 4x100-meter freestyle relay along with Michael Phelps, Neil Walker and Jason Lezak.
In 2007, he also won a gold medal in 4x100-meter freestyle relay with the same teammates in the 2007 World Aquatics Championships.
Jones is the first African-American to hold a world record (4×100-meter freestyle relay) in swimming. At the 2008 United States Olympic Trials, Jones broke the American record in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 21.59. The record was subsequently broken the next day by Garrett Weber-Gale. At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, he won a gold medal in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay in a world record time of 3:08.24 with Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak and Garrett Weber-Gale.
In July 2009, Jones set the American record in the 50- meter freestyle at the U.S. National Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana.
At the 2012 United States Olympic Trials in Omaha, Nebraska, the qualifying meet for the 2012 Olympics, Jones made the Olympic team for the second time by finishing first in the 50-meter freestyle and second in the 100-meter freestyle, which subsequently qualified him for the 4x100-meter freestyle relay. In the 50-meter freestyle final, Jones won with a time of 21.59, one one- hundredth (0.01) of a second ahead of second-place finisher Anthony Ervin (21.60).
At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Jones won silver medals in the 50-meter freestyle and the 4x100-meter freestyle relay. He earned a gold medal in the 4x100-meter medley relay after swimming the freestyle leg in the preliminaries. He also competed in the 100-meter freestyle, but did not qualify for the event finals.
The 2012 U.S. Olympic swim team was the first U.S. Olympic swim team with more than one black swimmer on it, Jones made history with Anthony Ervin and Lia Neal by being the three African-Americans on the team.
David Wharton – Olympian 1988 & 1992
He is currently spearheading the design and construction of a $46 million-dollar athletic facility for the community that will include indoor turf fields, track and field amenities, as well as basketball, volleyball and pickleball courts. When completed, the New Albany Fieldhouse and Community Center will be the first to offer such facilities to the public in the state of Ohio.
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David attended Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, PA, coached by the extraordinary Dick Shoulberg. As a member of the 1988 and 1992 Olympic teams, David earned a silver medal in the 400 IM in the ’88 Seoul Olympics. While competing for the National Team, David achieved 2 world records and 8 American records.
David attended the University of Southern California and earned 7 NCAA Championship Titles in his four years as a Trojan and was the American male swimmer of the year in 1987. Also notable to mention is that David achieved this high level of success even though he was born with a moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears. Wearing hearing aids his whole life, he learned to thrive in the hearing world.
David is still active in swimming. He is head coach for the New Albany High School’s swim team which has won 2 state titles under his leadership. David also competes in United States Masters Swimming on a local, regional and National Level. David resides in Westerville, OH.
Ivan Puskovitch - 2024 Olympian
Ivan currently resides in Southern California where he trains with TSM Aquatics in Santa Monica, but remains connected to Philadelphia swimming. In addition to open water, Ivan is a national-level swimmer in the pool, but his true loyalties lie with the wild waters. A fellow Philadelphian and storied open water swimmer, the late Fran Crippen, serves as one of his biggest role models and sources of motivation.
Ivan graduated from the Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. He’s a PA born-&-bred swimmer who started making waves on a grander scale when he took his efforts to Greater Philadelphia and broke a National Age Group (NAG) Record shortly thereafter. During middle and high school, he swam for iconic Philadelphia coaches Dick Shoulberg and Chris Lear, both of which have decades of experience in developing high performance swimmers.
Ivan’s collegiate swimming career saw him travel all over the nation to the University of Southern California where he swam three seasons and West Virginia University where he swam one. After he finished his NCAA campaign in the Spring of 2024, Ivan turned his sights to open water and long course swimming almost exclusively in order to focus on his burgeoning professional swimming career.
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The second day of open-water racing at the World Aquatics Championships featured a 14th-place finish by Ivan Puskovitch (West Chester, Pa./TSM Aquatics) in the Men’s 10K. The swim qualifies him to swim in the event at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Men’s 10K – FINAL
- 14 – Ivan Puskovitch (West Chester, Pa./TSM Aquatics), 1:48:54.40
Puskovitch on his swim: “This was my first World Championships, let alone first Olympic-qualifying event. The biggest thing for me was just trying to stay calm throughout the race. The first feed I reached for got swatted out of my hand, so I just had to keep my cool, put my head down and get back into the (lead) pack. I was making sure to keep my emotions tame so I could put my energy towards taking no soft strokes, racing the person next to me and keeping that mentality for all six laps.”
Puskovitch on qualifying for the Paris Olympics: “I’m speechless. It’s surreal. I made a change about a year ago to be with coach Mo Khadembashi at TSM. About a year-and-a-half ago, I told him that I wanted to be on the National Team in open water, and he looked at me and said, “if you’re going to do it right now, why don’t you go for the Olympic team?’ On that phone call, when he said that, I couldn’t really believe what he said given how things were going in my career at that time. It’s crazy what speaking things into existence and having people around you who believe in you can do for you. I’m so proud to have achieved this for myself and for Team USA to walk out of here as an Olympic qualifier. I do this for all the people who have sacrificed so much for me, have been with me every step of the way, and never lost faith in me to achieve my dreams.”
Puskovitch becomes the fifth American male swimmer in history to qualify to swim the open water 10K at the Olympic Games, joining Jordan Wilimovsky (2016, 2020), Sean Ryan (2016), Alex Meyer (2012) and Mark Warkentin (2008).
Puskovitch’s swim came down to a photo finish that saw him touch just 0.3 seconds ahead of Great Britain’s Toby Robinson.
High School
Growing up just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Puskovitch competed for the Episcopal Academy Aquatic Club (EAAC) while also attending the Eposcopal Academy.
Throughout his career, Puskovitch found his greatest success in open water swimming, qualifying to represent the United States at the 2017 and 2019 World Junior Championships in the 7.5km distance. Puktsovich was also the 2018 Junior National Champion in the 7.5km race.
Puskovotch also finished 8th in the 5km race at he 2019 US Open Water National Championships, falling 2 spots short of qualifying for the 2019 World Championships in the event.
In mid-2018, Puskovitch announced his commitment to swim at USC in the fall of 2019, becoming the school’s first recruit from the class of 2019.
International Career
Rise to the US National Team
Puskovitch finished 5th in the 10km race and 3rd in the 5km race at the 2023 US Open Water National Championships, enough ot earn a spot on the 2023-2024 US National Team. This marked his first time making the senior-level national team.
Shortly after Nationals, Puskovitch announced that he would be transferring to West Virginia University to pursue his master’s degree. In the meantime, he said that he would be commuting to train with Mo Khadembashi at Team Santa Monica, one of the country’s top club programs for open water swimming.
Puskovitch’s decision quickly paid dividends as only a few weeks later he finished as the top American in the 10km race at the Portugal stop of the 2023 World Aquatics Open Water World Cup, booking his ticket to represent the US at the 2024 World Championships.
2024 World Championships
With at least 13 Olympic qualifying spots on the line, Puskovitch raced confidently at his first World Championships, maintaining his spot within the pack. After 10 kilometers of racing, he finished 14th overall, enough toearnaspot to wsmi het evenats a representative of the United States at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Not only was his finish his highest senior-level international finish of his career, but Puskovitch also became only the 5th American man to qualify for an open water event at the Olympic Games with his performance. Puskovitch also became the first member of the University of West Virginia’s swimming and diving team to ever qualify for the Olympics.