Frank Busch mailed his coaching résumé to the Arizona athletic department in June of 1989. He didn’t hear a word from the school for six weeks.
So Busch finally phoned the UA. Associate athletic director Mary Roby told him he was one of 12 finalists to be Arizona’s swimming coach.
Then the coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats, Busch, the longest of long shots, chose to leave his home turf and essentially rebuild Arizona’s scandal-divided swimming program from ground up.
By 1993 he was the NCAA coach of the year. Arizona wouldn’t fall out of the top 10, in either men’s or women’s swimming, until Busch resigned in 2011 to become director of USA Swimming’s national teams.
As Arizona rose to national prominence, the third of Frank Busch’s four sons, Augie, was working as a volunteer assistant on his father’s staff. He was also the head coach at Salpointe Catholic High School and operated the summer swimming program at Sabino Vista Hills.
“I wasn’t paid much, so I worked part-time as a bartender at the Shanty and at Frog & Firkin,” Augie Busch said Saturday. “I’d get home at 3 a.m., and then wake up for the morning swimming workouts. I thought, ‘if I’m willing to do this, if I can sustain this type of work ethic, it could lead to a good coaching career.’ Some people told me I was out of my mind, but I was set on it.”
By 2008, Augie helped his father sweep the NCAA men’s and women’s championships in a space of eight wonderful days. By 2011, he was the head coach of Houston’s women’s swimming program. By 2014, he coached Virginia’s women’s team to what would be three consecutive No. 5 finishes at the NCAA finals.
On Saturday, Augie Busch came home. He will take over the UA swimming program in about the same position his father found it 28 years ago: struggling and in need of new blood and a new vision.
It took UA athletic director Dave Heeke about 50 days to find a replacement for the retiring Rick DeMont, similar to the time it took Roby to find and evaluate Frank Busch in 1989.
Heeke could’ve hired Augie 49 days earlier — no one in the swimming community would’ve blinked an eye — but to Heeke’s credit, he took his time and surveyed the field, much of it stocked with Busch’s protégés.
When Heeke announced Augie’s appointment Saturday, he used the term “storied” in describing Arizona’s swimming history.
Heeke had done his homework.
Frank Busch, who is retiring from USA Swimming at the conclusion of next month’s World Championships, did not participate in Heeke’s search process. Frank was confident that Heeke would see the like-father-like-son similarities.
“This is what I know about coaching,” Frank Busch said Saturday. “It is a profession that you must be so passionate that you are almost blinded by everything else. All good coaches are that way.”
That’s Sean Miller. That’s Jay Johnson.
“If you are that passionate, it means you will do whatever it takes to continue along that path,” Frank Busch said. “That is what’s happening in Augie’s life. I knew he’d be a great coach.”
Before he agreed to move from Virginia to Arizona, Augie Busch insisted on two things: His assistant coaching staff would include ex-Arizona All-American Cory Chitwood and the youngest of Frank and Patrice Busch’s five children, Sam.
Those young men are recruiting and teaching dynamos, Wildcats at heart, as much a part of the UA’s swimming success from 1989-2011 as anyone.
“Sam and Cory both aspire to be head coaches,” Augie said. “I’d be crazy not to have them join me. Right now they’re both on cloud nine to be able to go back to Tucson and get to work.”
This won’t be an easy fix. Five years of recruiting ineffectiveness hit the UA so hard that it lost a dual meet to ASU for the first time in 21 years. Its supply of All-Americans and Olympians has gone pffft. Former UA athletic director Greg Byrne said it might cost as much as $12 million to get the Hillenbrand Aquatic Center up to the level of most NCAA powerhouses.
As DeMont said a few days after he retired, “it’s a mammoth job.”
“All of us — Sam, Cory and myself — paid attention to what has gone on at Arizona and we know what we’re getting into,” Augie said. “It’s going to be a lot of hard work and a while before we can get it back to the top 10, let alone where my dad had it.
“We’re pretty much up against it now.”
Those could’ve been similar words out of Frank Busch’s mouth in 1989. But little by little, with a Crissy Ahmann and then a Chad Carvin and a Ryk Neethling and an Amanda Beard, the UA swimming program became a behemoth.
It recruited globally, getting top prospects from Israel, South Africa, Canada, Venezuela, as well as at Flowing Wells High School.
Now the uphill climb starts again. Don’t expect to see Augie Busch sitting on the patio at Frog and Firkin.
