Days after winning the program's first national championship, ASU swim and dive hired Herbie Behm as the team's new head coach after Bob Bowman's exit to Texas.
Swimming is a passion for Behm - he’s not in the sport just for trophies and world records. Instead, he swims and now coaches for the betterment of himself and others around him as his alma mater's new leader.
"When you come to a meet, it’s more of an expression of your lifestyle," Behm said.
Behm has been swimming almost his entire life. When he was a toddler, he often watched his sister swim and wanted to be just like her. At age five he started swimming.
Hailing from the Tucson area, Behm was a standout swimmer at Catalina Foothills High School. He was a 10-time Arizona state champion, 10-time All-American and two-time Arizona High School Swimmer of the Year.
After high school, Behm attended Tennessee for a year before transferring to ASU in 2010. The Arizona native's return to the desert as a swimmer was anything but a heartwarming homecoming.
"Whatever amount of money I could pay to not do that, I would," Behm said.
During the 2011-12 season, the ASU men’s swim team didn't win a single meet and finished seventh out of eight teams in the Pac 12 Men’s Championship.
The Sun Devils' lack of success during his time as an athlete is something Behm still remembers today during the program's renaissance. Behm wants to build on Bowman's success to boost his alma mater and make the program better than what he went through as an athlete.
"To do it here means a lot to me," Behm said. "It means more to do it in a place that hasn’t always been good."
READ MORE: Herbie Behm takes over ASU swim and dive with similar expectations
Coaching has been in the back of Behm’s mind since he was a teenager. He said his life plan has always been to become a swimming coach.
"It’s something I’ve literally pursued since high school," Behm said. "When I took recruiting trips, all the coaches I talked to I told them I'm going to be a coach one day. So it's kind of been the plan, like my whole life."
He returned to his alma mater in 2018 and served as the assistant coach for four years and associate head coach for one. Now at the helm, Behm has received nothing but praise from his athletes.
Senior freestyle swimmer Daniel Matheson and junior freestyle utility swimmer Jonny Kulow both highlighted Behm’s charismatic personability as a key reason Behm will succeed in the head coach's chair.
"Herbie is a guy you can have a great relationship with," Matheson said. "Everyone is able to be close with Herbie and have conversations with him that you wouldn't be able to have with other coaches."
Behm is regarded as more of a sprint coach, but Kulow knows that Behm covers all the bases at practice to better the team's efforts.
"In these past couple months, he’s filled Bob’s shoes exceptionally well," Kulow said. "He'll do the research, he'll do the science and math and put just as much effort into a mid-distance or distance-type practice. So no one’s getting neglected at all."
Heading into the season, the Sun Devils are confident in Behm to lead as Bowman did. He has built a tight-knit group in which his ability to focus on each swimmer's strengths and weaknesses has helped gain the team's trust.
"I think his dedication to the athletes, but also his will to scientifically go into every little detail, whether it's sprint or distance, is a crazy good recipe for success for him as a coach, but also us as a team under him," Kulow said.
Edited by Jack Barron, Sophia Braccio and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at jkmccar2@asu.edu and follow @jackmccarthyasu on X.
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Jack is a junior studying sports journalism with a minor in business. This is his first semester with The State Press. He has also worked at his high school paper.
