Former Hawkeye assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Nathan Mundt will serve as Iowa women’s swimming and diving head coach starting in the 2021-22 season, Iowa Athletics announced Monday.

The announcement comes one month after former head coach Marc Long, who was the men’s and women’s swim and dive coach for 17 seasons, declined the opportunity to coach the women’s team for the 2021-22 season on April 20.

Mundt served as the Hawkeyes’ assistant coach and recruiting coordinator under Long from 2008-16, coaching 33 All-Americans in his first stint as an Iowa coach. 

In his time at Iowa, Mundt recruited and coached former Hawkeye Becky Stoughton as she became the program’s first Big Ten Women’s Swimming and Diving Freshman of the Year in 2012. 

Mundt has over 15 years of coaching experience. Before coming to Iowa in 2008, he was the head coach at Western Illinois University. He has been the head coach of the Iowa Flyers Swim Club — an Iowa City-based club swim team that practices in the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center — since 2016.

The IFLY coaching staff was named the 2021 Iowa Swimming Inc. Senior Coaching Staff of the Year, as voted on by fellow coaches.

During his time with IFLY, Mundt coached two athletes who made it on the USA Swimming’s 18 and under Top 100 list. He coached a 2017 U.S. Open champion in the 200-meter butterfly — that athlete was also named to the USA Swimming Junior National Team in 2017.

“We’re excited to welcome Nathan back to the Iowa coaching family,” Iowa athletic director Gary Barta said in a release. “He has proven himself as a leader in the swimming community within the state and beyond throughout his career. His history of success and his familiarity with the program make him a perfect fit to lead this program.”

Mundt will step in to lead a rebuilding women’s swim and dive program.

On Aug. 21, 2020, the University of Iowa, now-former president Bruce Harreld, and Barta announced the discontinuation of four Hawkeye NCAA Division I sports programs — men’s and women’s swimming and diving, men’s tennis, and men’s gymnastics — at the end of the 2020-21 academic year to decrease the UI Athletics budget deficit brought on by COVID-19.

But after an ongoing legal battle between the UI and four women’s swimmers — Sage Ohlensehlen, Kelsey Drake, Christina Kaufman, and Alex Puccini — the UI reinstated women’s swimming and diving in its entirety on Feb. 16.

The Title IX lawsuit is still ongoing between the UI and the women’s swimmers, but likely will not not conclude with the reinstatement of the men’s swimming and diving program.

Although the women’s swim and dive program was reinstated in February, many women’s swimmers elected to transfer out of the program, finding new homes at other universities around the country.

In the 2019-20 season, 34 women’s swimmers and divers were on the Iowa athletics roster. In the 2020-21 season, that number shrunk to 24.

“I am thrilled to become the head coach of women’s swimming and diving at the University of Iowa,” Mundt said in a release. “I would like to thank Gary Barta, [Deputy Director of Athletics] Barbara Burke, [Senior Associate Director of Athletics] Marcus Wilson, and the entire search committee for granting me this opportunity.  I’m excited to lead the program into the future.”

The women’s swim and dive season is slated to begin in October.