Initially speculated as an April Fool’s joke, the April 1st announcement was confirmed at a press conference in Austin, Texas when the 58-year-old Bowman was introduced as the successor to veteran UT coach Eddie Reese who is retiring at 82 years of age. Bowman, the coach of the G.O.A.T. Michael Phelps celebrated his 59th birthday just days later on April 6th.

Reese was hired as the Texas men’s head coach in 1978, winning 15 NCAA titles while leading the Longhorns during his tenure. Reese twice served as the US men’s Olympic head coach at the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Games and as an assistant coach four times. Bowman’s Olympic credentials include five stints as a member of the US Olympic coaching staff, including men’s head coach at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

At ASU Bowman recently guided Leon Marchand to his eighth and likely final NCAA individual title, an all-time record for a Sun Devil swimmer. Marchand, a junior student-athlete, majoring in computer science was recognised for the third consecutive year as the men’s Swimmer of the Year by the College Swimming Coaches Association.  Marchand was born in ​​Toulouse, France in May 2022 and is the son of former French Olympians Xavier Marchand and Céline Bonnet.  The younger Marchand is expected to be one of the faces of his nation’s Olympic Games this summer.

Athletes training under Bowman will soon be moving to Austin, Texas

According to Bowman, “The pro athletes who are training with me are going to go to Austin in some quick fashion, in the next couple weeks they'll be there. We're going to train there until we leave for an altitude camp, which we always do. Then we're going to race at the Speedo Grand Challenge in Irvine. We're going back to Austin for the three weeks before the US Olympic Team Trials. Everything stays the same in terms of their preparation, just in a different location.”

Bowman reported: “Some athletes are training with Herbie Behm and they'll stay with Herbie.'' Behm was named the new ASU head coach on the same day it was announced that Bowman had accepted the position at the University of Texas. Behm swam for ASU and returned to his alma mater in 2018, serving as an assistant and later associate head coach at Arizona State University under Bowman. 

"Herbie as the brightest young coach in America and becoming the Head Coach at ASU is a perfect opportunity for him," Bowman said. "He was my trusted partner in building our championship program and he will lead the Sun Devils to many more milestones in the future. I couldn't be happier for Herbie or for ASU!"

Bowman confirmed that “the University of Texas men will continue to train with Eddie through the US Olympic Trials.”

In Focus | The Paris 2024 Olympic Games

Bowman confirmed that he will be coaching on the Paris pool deck for the Olympic Games this summer. “I'll be with the French team. It's for several reasons. Last summer when I was the head coach of the U.S. team,  I was also coaching  Léon Marchand and Hubert Kos and several other athletes.  The first question in the USA Press Conference was will  Léon break Michael Phelps’ record? I don't want to be in that position. I don't want to put Team USA in that position, and I would never do that.

I have a feeling that in Paris Léon might be a little bigger than he was last summer. So it just makes it so much better for everyone for me to coach with the French because they have no stipulations about me coaching swimmers of other nationalities. It's a little different with the USA team, which I certainly respect. So it just makes sense for everybody because then I can coach everybody that I'm coaching now. So it will be good.”

Bowman said: “Léon Marchand is a pro, he will be a pro.  He was going to do that at ASU. He was going to be finished with the NCAA after this past (NCAA Championship) meet. So he was going to turn pro anyway.”

Bowman added, “We have a great group and they had a great camp. The ones who are at altitude are swimming quite well here. And I feel like they're going to be contenders there (at the Olympics.) That was the whole point of them coming (to ASU) and what we're trying to do. So they seem to be right on track. We'll just try to keep going through the process and it got a little different last week, but it's really the same process for them in terms of the training. So it should be good.” 

Bowman responded to a question about coaching Michael Phelps, an athlete who, like Marchand, also came into the Olympics with massive expectations. “You just have to focus on what you're doing and realize that the challenge of the Olympics is not necessarily swimming the events. Everybody's trained to do that and is capable of doing that, but can you do it in the environment, right? That's the challenge. So you have to do a couple of things. Number one, you've got to learn how to block out some noise because there will be constant noise. You have to learn how to adapt when things kind of pop up because they will. You can't just expect it's going to be some like dream sequence of events where you just go and it happens. So you go in with that mindset. Part of my job will be to just kind of fend some things off before they even get to them. That's a big part of it as well. So it's kind of a team effort, but it's really all about his mindset and Léon’s well aware. We've talked about it for years now, what that challenge would be like.”

According to Bowman,  Leon and Michael “talk every now and then, but you know, in general,  Léon's got to prepare Léon. That's the main thing because when he has to go get up on that block, it's going to be him. And we can cheer all we want. That's not going to really have anything to do with how he swims. So he knows that he's got to take ownership of it. He's got to make the decisions that are going to help put him in the best position for success.”

Bowman amplified: “Leon’s always been good with it, he's pretty independent. He doesn't really need me to do much at these meets. And I tried to make it that way because that's how you want to bring him up. The last thing you want to do with a high-level swimmer is to make him dependent on their coach because there might be a time when the coach isn't there or something happens and things get disruptive for a couple of weeks and they have to keep it going, right?  He knows what he needs to do and how he needs to do it. And we also have built in a system of routines that are basically automatic at this meet. Like all he needs to know is when the events start and that lets him know when he's going to warm up, what he's going to do, when he's going to get out of the warm-up, when he's going to put his suit on, when he's going to go to the ready room, what to do after, he has a whole thing. So he doesn't really have to make a lot of decisions at the meet and that's by design because the last thing you want to be doing at the Olympics is trying to figure that out. That just has to be part of your DNA at that point. He's pretty independent. “

Bowman Decision | Moving to the University of Texas

Asked about his decision to leave Tempe for Austin and his new position as the Director of Swimming and Diving at The University of Texas, Bowman replied, “It was very difficult.  Obviously I put my heart and soul into Arizona State University. Love it to death, love those guys. When the opportunity came up, it was an agonizing month. Let's just say I haven't had a lot of sleep for a while because I knew what the ramifications would be. Having said that, the opportunity is one that is so rare in the sport and quite frankly so special that I could not say no to it. I think everybody understands that (the University of Texas) is a very special place, particularly for swimming and I just had to do it.”

Bowman explained his decision to his athletes; “We get caught up in swimming. All of us love it so much, it's just a thing we do. They are going to move on someday and have a career, but this is my career.  I'm going to be doing this long after they're finished swimming and I have to make some decisions in accordance with that. As I told them, ‘in 10 years you'll understand. Right now you're not going to understand, but you will’. 

Four Key Things Coach Bob Bowman Asks of His Athletes

“There are five things that I ask athletes to do every year, begins Bowman. “We have the same talk every year and now the seniors know what I am going to say and they kind of say it with me. 

“Number one, we have to have honesty. Whatever we do, I'm going to be very straightforward with you. Good, bad, ugly, and in between. You're never going to have to worry about where I stand. You're always going to know.  And I'd like the same from you. Because that's the foundation of any healthy relationship, right?

“Number two is accountability. Your accountability;  you're accountable for your swimming. You're accountable for what you do away from the pool. You're accountable for your schoolwork. 

“These things end up to something called integrity, right? Put those two together. Honesty and accountability to me are integrity. So that's very important in our program. You're going to get a lot of feedback. Some of the feedback you're not going to want to hear, but that's my job. And I'm not doing my job. If I don't tell you some things that you need to know, but maybe don't want to know, I'd like for you to tell me some things that maybe I don't want to hear that I need to hear. Same thing. We have those difficult conversations. 

"Athletes today have a very hard time with that because (their communications are) all by text. They don't get to sit face to face, but we make them do it. They have to do it in our program. They have to sit down and talk about it. Which I think is a skill that everybody needs. 

“The third one is competitiveness. I want you to be competitive in what you do. I want you to care about that aspect of it and not in a zero-sum way. Not like you get something somebody else doesn't, but competitive competition means striving together, right? If you look up the Latin root, make yourself better by competing in practice and in everything we do.  Our athletes compete to see who can wrap up the workout and throw it in the trash can after practice. I love that. Just make that part of your day. 

The next one is resiliency. You know, it's never a straight line to success. You get knocked down all the time.  The only thing that matters is that you get up and try harder, do better, learn something. So we have to be resilient.

“And then, finally, everyone in the program has to show respect. You have to have respect for the process of what we're doing. Respect for your teammates, respect for your competitors, your coaches, your parents, yourself, what you do with and to your body. You know, there are a lot of things going on out there. And if you approach it with an attitude of respect, you're going to be the kind of person that we want you to be, the kind of athlete and student that you want to be.”

Five Facts about Five-Five Team USA Olympic Coach Bob Bowman

Bowman coached then-15-year-old Michael Phelps to a spot on the 2000 US Olympic team, Phelps was one of just a handful of American swimmers to return from Sydney without an Olympic medal.  

Bowman was named an assistant coach for the Athens 2004 Olympics, the primary coach for Phelps who won six Olympic gold and two bronze.  A US assistant at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bowman coached Phelps to an Olympic record of eight gold medals. 

Bowman was chosen as an assistant coach for the 2012 London Olympic coaching staff where Phelps added four gold and two silver medals. Bowman was selected as the head men’s coach for the 2016 US Olympic Team where Phelps came back from retirement to win five gold and one silver medal.  

Phelps retired following the Rio Olympics as the most decorated Olympian in history having earned 28 Olympic medals.  Bowman was a member of the US coaching staff for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Six times Bowman was named USA Swimming Coach of the Year. In 2024, he was recognized as the men’s Coach of the Year by the College Swimming Coaches Association.