Blaire Bachman
Blaire Bachman joined the UVA coaching staff in August 2017 as an assistant coach, serving as the women’s recruiting coordinator and primary coach for the upper middle distance training group. Since arriving in Charlottesville, Bachman has aided in the recruitment of the No. 1 & No. 2 women’s recruiting classes and No. 3 & No. 9 men’s recruiting classes in the NCAA. She was promoted to associate head coach in 2021.
Bachman helped guide Virginia’s women’s team to the program’s first NCAA Championship in 2020-21. UVA won six national titles in individual and relay events at the NCAA Championships, the most ever by an ACC program. The Cavaliers had 12 athletes named to CSCAA All-America Teams (10 first team and two second team). Virginia also won its third women’s ACC Championship in four years, and league-record 17th overall.
In her third year with the Cavaliers, Bachman helped the women’s team secure the ACC Championship title with the highest point score in history and the men’s team finishing as the runner-up in February 2020. Among those athletes representing Virginia, she helped coached Paige Madden to three ACC individual titles and ACC Female Athlete of the Year award. Additionally middle distance athletes, Ella Nelson and Abigail Richter set UVA school records in the 400 IM and 200 breaststroke.
In 2018-19, Bachman coached six athletes to the NCAA Championships with Zach Fong, Paige Madden, Emma Seiberlich and Abby Richter earning All-America honors. Madden represented the U.S. at the Pan American Games. Her athletes helped the Cavalier women finish sixth at the NCAA Championships, the third best finish in program history, and the men’s team record its best finish since 2011, placing 10th overall.
In Bachman’s first year with the program, she coached six student-athletes to the NCAA Championships, in addition to coaching the 2018 women’s ACC 200-yard backstroke champion and a 2018 World University Games qualifier in the 200-yard freestyle. Her swimmers set two school records over the course of the season, helping to set new standards for UVA.
Bachman has had eight years of coaching experience at the club and college level. From 2016-17, she served as the assistant swimming coach and women’s recruiting coordinator for Indiana University. During her time with the Hoosiers, the program captured a 2017 Big Ten Conference Championship before concluding the year with a top-8 finish on both sides.
Prior to Indiana, Bachman spent a year as the assistant swimming coach and women’s recruiting coordinator for Dartmouth (2015-16) after following a five-year stint (2010-15) as the head swim coach and aquatics director for Brenau.
With Brenau, Bachman was named the 2014 NAIA Swimming and Diving Women’s Coach of the Year, while earning the Appalachian Swimming Conference Women’s Coach of the Year in 2012-13-14. Bachman is a four-time American Swimming Coaches Association Coach of Excellence honoree (2011-12-13-14). In 2010-11, her first season at Brenau, she became the youngest head coach in the nation.
Bachman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in mass communication, with a concentration in Public Relations from Georgia College and State University in 2009.