Jon Maccoll enters his ninth season as the head coach of the Rutgers swimming & diving program, originally ascending to the helm of the program in December of 2017. Maccoll has directed the Scarlet Knights to new heights in the Big Ten and holding a reputation for building a championship culture at each one of his stops.
During his career, Maccoll has been accountable for 182 All-America swims from 32 student-athletes and worked with six swimmers that went on to compete in the Olympics, with five earning gold medals at Olympic summer games. Under Maccoll's watch at Rutgers, the Scarlet Knights have achieved nearly 100 times and scores among the school's all-time top 10. In fact, 22 school records have been established during Maccoll's tenure, marking all but one of Rutgers' 22 benchmarks achieved since his arrival. With Maccoll at the helm, Rutgers has captured its highest NCAA finish since 2006 and its highest point total in Big Ten history.
Since taking over the Rutgers swimming & diving program, Maccoll's Scarlet Knights have continued an upward trend in overall team performance and in reaching the podium at the Big Ten Championships. Over the last eight years, 21 individuals and 13 relay teams have reached top-eight status, including 62 finalists since 2022 and the highest team point total since joining the league at the 2023 championships.
In 2025, Rutgers finished 41st at the NCAA Championships, marking the fourth-straight season the Scarlet Knights were represented on the national stage. RU sent a record four divers, including NCAA Zone Champions and Team USA members Katerina Hoffman on 3M and Bailee Sturgill on platform. At NCAAs, Sephora Ford earned Second Team All-America honors on platform, becoming the sixth Scarlet Knight diver to be named an All-American and the fourth over the last five years. Rutgers also continued to make their mark on the Big Ten Championships with 12 Scarlet Knights advancing to finals and Big Ten All-Freshman Sturgill making the podium on 1M and platform. Molly Urkiel spotlighted the continued success of Scarlet Knight graduate transfers in recent years as she set school records in the 200 breast and 400 IM. Along with Urkiel's times, Rutgers also collected 25 new entries among its all-time top times/scores.
The Scarlet Knights finished 32nd at the 2024 NCAA Championships with at least one Scarlet Knight sent to the national champions in each of the last three seasons. At the Big Ten Championships the 400 medley relay team produced the highest podium finish for a relay squad since joining the league back in 2014, while eight NCAA B cuts were registered, 18 top 24 finishes were recorded,13 program top 10 times were captured and 28 personal bests were set including a school record and podium finish for Tina Celik in the 100 back.
RU continued its upward trend in 2022-23 as the Scarlet Knights captured its highest point total at the Big Ten Championships since joining the Big Ten and sent NCAA Zone A platform champion Giulia Vittorioso to the NCAA Championships. Altogether the Scarlet Knights produced six podium finishes at the conference championships along with 11 B final competitors and five C final appearances. RU set three new school records in the 100 breast and 200 and 400 medley relays, along with a trio of Rutgers Aquatics Center Pool records in the 50 free, 200 free relay and 200 medley relay. The Scarlet Knights achieved 99 personal bests during the season, 65 event victories, 25 times/scores among the all-time top 10 along with 24 NCAA B cuts/zone scores.
Rutgers was back to full strength for 2021-22 following the pandemic and continued to make huge strides in the water. The Scarlet Knights captured their highest Big Ten Championship finish since joining the Big Ten and finished 26th at the NCAA Championships, the highest finish for the Scarlet Knights since 2006. Altogether the Scarlet Knights produced 10 podium finishes at the championships. Seven new Rutgers school records were established and 28 times/scores were recorded among the all-time top 10. Nine NCAA "B" cuts were collected, while six divers were sent to NCAA Zones. On the boards, Rutgers sent two divers to the NCAA Championships with Abigail Knapton producing all-america honors as a finalist on platform and consolation finalist on 3-meter.
In 2019-20, five school records were reset and six new Rutgers Aquatic Center pool records were captured with 18 times or scores by Maccoll's pupils among the all-time top 10. Rutgers had four podium finishes at the Big Ten Championships led by Terka Grusova’s silver medal performance in the 100 back, the highest finish for a Scarlet Knight. The Czech Republic native also earned a repeat trip to the NCAA Championships but competition was canceled due to the CoVID-19 pandemic.
Four of Maccoll's Scarlet Knights represented Rutgers at the NCAA Championship in 2019 with Francesca Stoppa leading the group with her fourth career appearance on the national stage. Koprivova, in her second NCAA appearance, was .01 seconds away from becoming Rutgers’ first honorable mention All-American swimmer since 2008 in the 200 back and graduated as the programs’ record holder in the 100 and 200 back, as well as the team’s first and only two-time Big Ten Championships medalist in those two events. Rachel Byrne was on the boards at NCAAs for a third-straight season and Terka Grusova earned the invitation in her debut collegiate season.
The 2018-19 season was a monumental milestone as Maccoll led the Scarlet Knights to an undefeated start to the year with six-straight dual meet victories and two invitational crowns. It was all in preparation for championship season, where Rutgers earned its first two swimming medals at the Big Ten Championships since joining the conference in 2014-15, then sent its most swimmers to the NCAA Championships since 2007 with three. Vera Koprivova claimed a pair of bronze medals in the 100 and 200 back, and Stoppa earned bronze in the 200 fly at the Big Ten Championships. The senior pair joined Grusova at the NCAA Championships, marking the fourth time in the last five years Rutgers has sent a freshman to the national meet. By season’s end, the Scarlet Knights combined for 21 new entries into the program’s all-time Top 10 times and scores list.
Maccoll's student-athletes have also shined on the international stage during their Scarlet Knight careers.
Czech Republic teammates Grusova and Koprivova were separated by just half a second at the 2018 Czech Republic National Championships with Grusova claiming the 100-meter backstroke long course national title and Koprivova earning runner-up honors.
The duo also qualified for the 2019 World University Games with their times at the Swim Open Stockholm, which hosted a total of eight Scarlet Knights. The Czech natives were joined by Francesca Bertotto from Italy and Simone Lusby from New Zealand along with four United States natives - Sarah Davis, Kasja Dymek, Katie Dougherty and Lizzie Zeller.- traveling to Sweden attempting qualifying cuts for the U.S. Olympic trials.
Francesca Greco, Grusova and Koprivova also combined for nine Top 16 finishes at the 30th World University Games in Napoli, Italy with Maccoll serving as an assistant coach for the Czech Republic National Team. Each Scarlet Knight accounted for three Top 16 finishes apiece while qualifying for seven individual semifinals at the global event. Swimming for host Italy, Greco posted the highest world finish of the week from the Rutgers trio turning in a 59.70-second butterfly leg in the 4x100-meter medley relay finals and placing sixth while qualifying for the semifinals in both the 50- and 100-meter butterfly events with matching 14th place finishes. Koprivova swam into a pair of semifinals in the 50 and 200 back, placing ninth in the 200 and 13th in the 50. Koprivova missed making the 200 back finals by just one-hundredth of a second and swam the leadoff leg in the Czech Republic 4x100 medley relay, which placed 10th at the games. Grusova went 3-for-3 in qualifying for semifinals in her trio of back events finishing 12th in the 100, 15th in the 200 and 16th in the 50.
More recently, Grusova took to the pool in three back events at the 2019 European Short Course Championships in Scotland and Greco was just short of qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as a finalist in the 50-meter, 100-meter and 200-meter butterfly at the 2021 Italian National Championships.
Success has not been limited to the pool for the Scarlet Knights under Maccoll's watch as the Scarlet Knights have won 16-straight College Swimming Coaches Association of America Scholar All-American Team Awards consistently boasting one of the nation's top grade point averages. In the fall of 2021, Rutgers boasted a 3.49 fall term grade point average marking the fourth-highest GPA among Big Ten teams with six Scarlet Knights collecting perfect 4.0 GPAs for the semester and a total of 12 members earning a GPA above a 3.5. Thirty-four Scarlet Knights have been bestowed Big Ten Distinguished Scholar honors and 48 swimmers and divers have earned recognition on Big Ten All-Academic Teams.
Maccoll arrived "On the Banks" after serving as head coach at the University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota, where he launched the institution's first women's swimming team in 2016, after honing his skills over the course of seven years as an assistant at UNLV and Queens University.
Beginning his coaching career at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, he was tasked with spearheading the start-up program as an assistant coach from 2010-13. Working with head coach Jeff Dugdale, Maccoll helped mold a program that competed almost immediately at the national level. In 2015, powered by a corps of Maccoll's recruits, Queens captured the school's first-ever national championship in any sport by winning the NCAA Division II championships in both men and women's swimming and diving. At Queens, he guided 11 NCAA record holders and 23 NCAA National Championship swims from six individuals.
While at Queens, Maccoll brought in a pair of recruiting classes that included a total of four top-10 nationally ranked recruits. He was a member of the SwimMAC Carolina Team Elite coaching staff as well during his two years in Charlotte and helped start up a new program for summer training of collegiate swimmers.
Maccoll was selected as a Class of 2012 fellow for the American Swim Coaches Association, and attended both Ashland University and Slippery Rock University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Slippery Rock in 2007.
More Information on the Program:
Swimming and Diving in Review
