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Brad Flood, a former assistant coach at Iowa, Clemson, and Texas A&M among many other places, has died. He was 69 years old.
Flood retired from coaching in 2020 as the head coach of the Pfeiffer University women’s swimming team, where he was also aquatics director and adjunct professor in the school’s Division of Education.
Flood swam at NCAA Division II Slippery Rock State College before taking his first coaching job at the University of Iowa in 1988. There he gained his fame as the school’s distance coach, leading a training group that included Polish Olympian Artur Wojdat. Wojdat was the 1988 Olympic bronze medalist in the 400 free and won nine NCAA titles across the 200, 500, and 1650 yard freestyles while training at Iowa.
His nine individual NCAA titles ties him as third-most by a male NCAA collegiate swimmer in history, and included an NCAA and U.S. Open Record in the 500 freestyle.
In total, his group earned 33 All-America honors from six different athletes.
He spent the 1992-199e season with Texas A&M as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator before spending four seasons as head assistant coach at Clemson.
He took over his first program in August 1996 when he became the head coach of D1 program Central Connecticut State University. He led the women’s team to a conference title in 2001 and had NCAA qualifiers in 1999, 2000, and 2002.
After leaving CCSU, he build the University of Bridgeport from scratch, launching the women’s program in 2003 and the men’s program in 2009 at the NCAA Division II level. Among his trainees there was Oscar Pereiro, who won four straight NCAA titles in the 100 backstroke from 2010 through 2014, setting an NCAA Division II Record in 2011.
After retiring for the first time in 2014, he spent two seasons leading NCAA Division II Pfeiffer University in North Carolina from 2018 through 2020 before retiring again.
Flood also had a long engagement with the Polish Olympic Team, including as the team’s head coach at the 1992 Games. At that meet, Polish swimmers set 13 National Records, and Rafal Szukala won a silver medal in the 100 fly.
Flood had been suffering from health issues and living in North Carolina, friends of the coach told SwimSwam.
