How Butler grad David Belowich’s coaching career led him to CSCAA Hall of Fame
David Belowich watched plenty of swimmers enjoy success in the pool and in life.
That’s the success the 1968 Butler graduate revels in even as he’s set to be inducted into the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Division III Hall of Fame as part of its 2026 class on Monday in Chicago.
“Having this amazing acknowledgment was: ‘Wow,’” said Belowich, a Butler Township resident who coached for 35 years. “Being able to see people develop their abilities and create new abilities and responsibilities was just such a wonderful, wonderful way of being rewarded.”
Belowich’s coaching career began “in college ... in summer pools and stuff like that,” he said. He was the assistant men’s swimming coach while attaining his master’s degree at Indiana (Pa.) from 1972-74.
Following a brief stint as a high school swimming coach in Sarasota, Fla., he coached and earned a Ph.D. in exercise physiology at Florida State, the studies helping him understand how his pupils’ bodies responded during training.
Belowich later served as the head women’s swimming coach at the University of South Florida and Pitt. He wrapped up his odyssey with 11 years at Carnegie Mellon, where he was tapped as the 2004 NCAA Division III Men’s Coach of the Year after steering his team to a third-place finish at the NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships.
In all, he helped the Tartans’ men’s team to five straight top-8 finishes nationally. He coached 29 All-American swimmers at Carnegie Mellon.
“It was hard work, of course, because there was a lot of time, effort and energy put in,” Belowich said. “But the amount of individual accomplishments (made it) such a rewarding thing. And seeing people really become champions and All-Americans ... it was something that I loved.”
Belowich also coached his sons, Sean and Brian, to All-American efforts at Carnegie Mellon.
