TCU director of intercollegiate athletics Jeremiah Donati announced Thursday that head swimming and diving coach Sam Busch has been placed on administrative leave, and assistant coach Keith Dawley has been named acting head coach.
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing worse outside of the death of a student-athlete, than being around a situation of administrative leave,” Senior Associate Athletics Director for Student Services Gretchen Bouton said. “There’s nothing worse than working with someone and having to have tough conversations like that.”
For 38 years, the Horned Frog swimming and diving teams were the embodiment of stability under former head coach Richard Sybesma who announced his retirement last June. He is the longest-tenured head coach in TCU history.
Now, the swimming and diving team is facing the prospect of having a third head coach in less than a year with Busch having been hired last August.
Bouton, a former student-athlete herself, who played college basketball at Truman State University, said she feels for the team.
“You want student-athletes to have a world-class experience, whatever you can afford for them to have,” Bouton said. “It’s as frustrating to us as it is to them to say to them that the commitment you made to TCU that we made back to you is not going as well as we thought it would. It’s a sad situation.”
TCU Associate Athletics Director for Athletics Communications Mark Cohen said that outside of Donati’s statement, the school has nothing more to add since TCU doesn’t comment on personnel matters.