Women's Swimming and Diving
- Title:
- Assistant Coach
Ethan Jacobsen joined the UNI swimming and diving coaching staff ahead of the 2023-24 season as an assistant swim coach.
Jacobsen, a 2014 UNI graduate and Normal, Illinois native, returns to Cedar Falls after five seasons coaching at Missouri State.
In the last three seasons with the Bears, Jacobsen coached three Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) women’s champions, including Anna Miller, who became Missouri State’s first-ever swimmer to qualify for the NCAA Championships. Miller, along with teammate Libby Howell earned MVC Swimmer of the Year honors in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
On the men’s side, Jacobsen was part of two runner-up finishes (2021, 2023) and a third place finish (2022) with the Bears at the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Championships. During that three-year span, he coached 2022 MAC Swimmer of the Year Dylan Moffatt, as well as the conference’s most outstanding senior three straight years with Michael Clauch (2021), Pawel Krawczyk (2022) and Tyler Lewis (2023).
The 2019-20 season was historic for Jacobsen and the Bears, who swept both the MVC women’s and MAC men’s team titles. The Missouri State women earned their fourth straight and 16th overall championships with seven individual and three relay wins to finish the meet with 826.5 points. On the men’s side, the Bears were just as dominant at the MAC Championship meet, winning ten conference titles with senior Antonio Thomas being recognized as the MAC’s Co-Swimmer of the Year and Most Outstanding Senior.
In his first season in Springfield in 2018-19, Jacobsen played a key role in the women’s program earning another MVC title, while the men appeared on the national stage at the NCAA Championships. Led by NCAA qualifiers Blair Bish and Artur Osvath, the Bears finished as runner-up at the conference championship meet, with Bish garnering the highest individual placement at the national championships with a tenth place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Prior to his time at Missouri State, Jacobsen spent eight years with the Cedar Falls-based Black Hawk Area Swim Team (BLAST), where he helped coach 18 Iowa club swimming state champions. Having joined the BLAST staff while as a student at UNI, he worked with the club’s age groups for three years before assuming the role of senior group assistant coach in 2013, later assisting and leading the program’s senior group.
