Sean Quinn - Swimming & Diving Coach - University of North Carolina Athletics

Sean Quinn

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
squinn23@uncaa.unc.edu
Phone:
919-962-1604

The 2015 North Carolina Swimming Coach of the Year and four-time U.S. Swimming National Team coach, Sean Quinn was promoted to the position of full-time assistant swimming coach at the University of North Carolina during the summer of 2016 by Tar Heel head coach Rich DeSelm.

In 2017, U.S. Swimming named Quinn to its National Team coaching staff for his work with 100-yard butterflier Hellen Moffitt. As his swimmers continue to find success in the pool, Quinn also coaches his student-athletes to succeed in the classroom. Since Quinn has joined the full-time staff, the Tar Heels have extended their ACC Academic Honor Roll streak to four consecutive years of 40-plus swimmers and divers — 45 in 2017-18 and 41 in 2016-17 as well as 45 in 2015-16 and 48 in 2014-15. In both 2017 and 2018, five individuals were named to the All-ACC Academic Teams. Both Tar Heel squads have also earned College Swimming Coaches Association of America Scholar All-America Team status in each semester over the last two years.

In the water, Quinn has helped coach the Tar Heels to a number of new school records. In the 2017-18 season, the UNC men set seven school records in short course events, the women established 10 short course University records (including in four of five relays) and nine University long course records fell in summer 2017.

Although he is entering just his third year as assistant coach, Quinn is no stranger to the Carolina campus. Since first joining the team as a student-athlete in 1999, he has since served as a volunteer, part-time and full-time assistant coach for both the University of North Carolina as well as the North Carolina Aquatic Club, a U.S. Swimming club program based in Chapel Hill that trains at UNC’s Koury Natatorium. Quinn served seven years as a part-time assistant coach for the Carolina swimming program after six years as a volunteer coach. With NCAC, he was a staff coach from 2003 to 2010 before working his way up the ranks to the club’s head coach.

Over the years, Quinn worked to build NCAC into one of the top age group programs in the country, boasting multiple Nationals, Junior Nationals and Olympic Trials qualifiers. In September 2014, he achieved one of the highest coaching honors when he was first named a National Team coach by U.S. Swimming. He would go on to earn similar honors for three more consecutive years — 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Prior to becoming the overall head coach in 2010, Quinn was the head age group coach for the North Carolina Aquatic Club. He was selected as a North Carolina Zone Team coach in 2009 and helped coach the North Carolina team to a third-place finish in that competition in Orlando, Fla.

A native of Lancaster, S.C., and 1999 alumnus of Lancaster High School, Quinn established himself as a staple of the Tar Heel squad during his collegiate career. A three-time All-America selection as a Tar Heel swimmer in 2000, 2002 and 2003, he once held the school record in the 200-yard breaststroke, 100-meter breaststroke and 200-meter breaststroke. Quinn’s 200-yard breaststroke school record of 1:56.39 held until 2014 and his 200-meter breaststroke time of 2:14.92 — which he set set at the 2002 U.S. National Championships — remained unbroken until Michael McBryan took the school record in the summer of 2017.

Quinn bookended his collegiate career with two ACC individual championship titles in the 200-yard breaststroke, first as a freshman in 2000 and then as a senior in 2003. A four-time All-ACC selection, Quinn swam for the Mecklenburg Aquatic Club while in high school and was coached there by Pat Hogan. After earning the team’s Most Outstanding Swimmer Award in both 2000 and 2002, Quinn was named a tri-captain of the 2002-03 team and would later go on to top off his Carolina career as the team’s Most Valuable Swimmer in 2003.

Quinn also found success on an international level as a competitor. Before enrolling at Carolina, he swam in the 1999 U.S. Junior World Championships in Barcelona on a U.S. team coached by former Tar Heel Frank Comfort. During his freshman year at UNC, Quinn competed in the Short Course World Championships in Athens, Greece and he finished fifth in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials. He was offered a slot on the United States Team at the 2002 Short Course World Championships in Moscow, but most notably, Quinn won a silver medal in the 200-meter breaststroke at the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Quinn is married to Beth Colacurcio Quinn and has three children, Alice, Henry and Olivia. His sister Kathleen swam for four years at UNC and followed her brother’s footsteps to become tri-captain of the 2004-05 women’s team.