Neil Harper Position: Head Coach Experience: 10th Season Alma Mater: Louisiana State '90

Three Time ACC Coach of the Year (2004, 2006, 2007)

Entering his 11th season as head coach of the Seminoles, Neil Harper has proven he knows how to build one of the elite programs in the ACC and emerging programs in the country. His 110 wins rank third and .815 winning percentage ranks second in ACC history on the women's side. With 78 ACC Champions, 47 NCAA All-American honors and one National Champion during that time span, Harper's Florida State squads are continually at the top of the ACC standings and in the running at the NCAA Championships.

The 2009 season was a year of milestones for Harper. In his 10th season at the helm, Harper reached the 200-win plateau on January 17, 2009 against Clemson. It was also a year in which his athletes had record breaking success in the pool. In December, Florida State's contingent at the USA Short Course National Championships broke five conference records and seven school records. The team's results were a sign of things to come as Seminole swimmers and divers broke 24 school records in 2009. Harper also directed the men to a second-place finish at the ACC Championships and another Top 20 showing at the NCAA Championships. On the women's side, Harper's squad put together a fourth-place showing at ACC's. Harper has always put his teams up against the toughest competition and 2009 was no different as FSU raced against nine teams ranked in the CSCAA top 25. The team certainly rose to the challenge as Seminole athletes won ACC Performer of the Week honors six times and Andy Hodgson earned a National Collegiate Swimmer of the Week accolade as well.

Florida State athletes are a regular sight on top of the medal stand at the ACC Championships under Harper's tutelage. Florida State earned back-to-back ACC Championships when the women earned their first conference title in 2006 and the men followed with their first in 2007. The teams' ACC Championships garnered Harper two consecutive ACC Coach of the Year awards, his second and third such honors in four years. Over the last 11 years, the women's team has won 45 individual and relay titles while the men have amassed 33. The 16 combined championships in 2007 were the most during Harper's tenure. Only Florida State and Virginia have produced an individual men's champion in each of the last eight years and the Seminoles are the only institution with at least one gold medal winner since 1992.

As to be expected, the Tribe has been rewriting the school's record books. Nearly every record on the men's side has been broken during Harper's tenure in Tallahassee, except four records which were broken by athletes Harper recruited during his time as an assistant at FSU. In 2009 alone an amazing 17 records were broken on the men's side. On the women's side, 21 of the 22 school marks have fallen during Harper's time at FSU, including 14 records that were reset or broken in the last three years.

More of Florida State's swimming records are held by Harper's student-athletes than any other head coach's in history. On the women's lists, 111 of the 130 best times in Seminole lore have been set during Harper's 10 years, including either the number one or two spots in every event. The men's team has put its name down 99 times since Harper's arrival in 1999.

Harper's 84-38 (.713) mark on the men's side is second in school history and his winning percentage is first among active ACC coaches. Since the 2001-02 season, the women have won at least nine meets in all but one season and have only one loss outside the top 25. The men have produced at least nine wins per season in all but two seasons during that same time frame with just five losses beyond the top 25.

Florida State swimmers and divers excel in the classroom just as well as they do in the pool. Since 2000, the Seminoles have had at least 20 student-athletes on the ACC Academic Honor Roll each year, including a program-high 40 in 2007.

Previous Coaching Experience

In May of 1999, Harper returned to Tallahassee to take over the men's and women's swimming and diving teams after two years as the women's head coach at Ohio State. In two seasons with the Buckeyes, Harper's team posted a 15-12 mark while qualifying six athletes for the NCAA Championships. In the classroom, Ohio State excelled just as well as both of his teams received NCAA All-Academic selections. Within the conference, the Buckeyes received more than 20 Academic All-Big Ten Conference honors during his two seasons.

From 1994-97, Harper served as the top assistant at Florida State under Don Gibb. One of his main duties was to coordinate the Seminoles' recruiting efforts. His work with recruiting at FSU spoke for itself as the Seminoles produced numerous All-Americans, including FSU's first NCAA champion, Stephen Parry, in the 200 butterfly. As a top aide, Harper was also in charge of the team's strength and conditioning, while working with the stroke and individual medley swimmers. His work in the pool produced the school's first female All-Americans in six years as former assistant coach Anne Blachford (200 IM), Helen Jepson (200 fly) and Samantha White (100 breast) all enjoyed NCAA success.

A 1990 graduate of Louisiana State University, Harper served as an assistant at his alma mater from 1988-1994.. During his coaching stint in Baton Rouge, he helped the Tiger swimmers earn 21 NCAA All-America honors and seven Southeastern Conference titles. During the 1991 season, both the men and women posted one of their best finishes at the NCAA Championships as both came away with a 14th-place showing.

International Experience

Harper's skills also extends internationally as he has coached at the biggest international competitions in the last six years. During the summer of 2004, he was on deck for his fourth Olympic Games, traveling to Athens, Greece to coach Wickus Nienaber as the head man for the Swaziland contingency. Nienaber was just one of five of Harper's former Seminoles competing in the Olympics as Chris Vythoulkas swam for the Bahamas, Golda Marcus carried the El Salvador flag and Julio Santos represented Ecuador.

The biggest thrill for Harper at the 2004 Olympics was watching one of his former student-athletes reach the medal stand. Stephen Parry - a stand out for the Seminoles while Harper coached him as an assistant - brought home the bronze medal in the 200-meter butterfly.

In 2000, Harper was a member of the South African Olympic coaching staff in Sydney, Australia coaching Olympic medal hopefuls and Olympic finalists Brendon Dedekind and Brett Petersen.

In 2001, he traveled to Fukuoka, Japan to coach Nienaber in the FINA World Championships. The following summer he mentored Nienaber at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England, where he was joined by former Seminole All-American's Parry and Petersen, as well as Vythoulkas. In 2003, he returned to the FINA World Championships in Barcelona, Spain to coach Nienaber.

Swimming Experience

As a competitor, Harper is one of the top swimmers in LSU history. He first made his name in the SEC when he won the 100-yard backstroke at the 1986 conference meet. Throughout his career, Harper collected four SEC titles while earning seven NCAA All-America awards. During his final year, LSU won it's only SEC team championship and finished sixth at the NCAA Championships, the highest finish in school history. He still ranks on the Tigers' all-time top 10 performance list in four different events.

The London native represented Great Britain in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics in the 100 and 200-meter backstroke as well as a member of the 400-meter medley relay with sixth and fourth-place finishes, respectively.

Personal

The 44-year-old Harper is married to the former Paige Busch from Orlando, Fla., who was also an All-American and SEC champion in the 100-yard breaststroke at LSU. The couple has two daughters, Katherine (15) and Kelly (13).