UC Davis Athletics

The longest tenured head coach on the UC Davis coaching staff, Head Coach Barbara Jahn enters her 44th season at the helm of the Aggies' women's swimming and diving program in 2018-19, having guided the team from AIAW Division III through the ranks to NCAA Division I status.

Since the athletic department completed its transition to the Division I level, Jahn has led UC Davis to new levels of success, claiming five conference titles in the last 10 years with four of those coming as a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation in 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2016. 

During her tenure at UC Davis, Jahn has coached a multitude of All-Americans, including two student-athletes - Anna Pettis and Kristi Wheeler -selected as part of the NCAA Division II swimming team of the decade for the 1980s. Her student-athletes have been widely recognized on the university level as well. Six of her protegés have gone on to win the campus' Hubert Heitman Award as the outstanding female athlete of the year: Pettis (1985), Wheeler (1988), Shannon Little (1989), Yuka Kobayashi (2003 & 2005), Heidi Kucera (2009), and Hilvy Cheung (2016).

Additionally, three of her swimmers have also won the W.P. Lindley Award as the university's top scholar-athlete of the year: Laura O'Heir (1984), Wheeler (1987), and Linda Hermann (2011).

On the vaunted rosters of the Cal Aggie Athletics Hall of Fame, no fewer than six of her student-athletes are listed: Anna Pettis Scott (1991), Kristi Wheeler-Hussain (1993), Jamie McClellan (1999), Mary E. Fiedler-Althof (2001), Koren Pollock Motekaitis (2012) and Kobayashi (2012).

Under her tutelage, Jahn has helped mentor nine different swimmers to a total of 32 individual MPSF titles, numerous all-conference honors, a pair of athletes of the year in Heidi Kucera (2009 Big West Conference) and Linda Hermann (2011 MPSF), and a trio of MPSF freshmen of the year in Liliana Alvarez (2011), Hilvy Cheung (2014), and Solie Laughlin (2016).

In addition, four different student-athletes have ended their seasons at the NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships, beginning with Kucera, who followed up her athlete of the year accolades by swimming in three events at the 2009 championships in College Station, Texas (200 IM, 100 breast, and 200 breast). Alvarez qualified for a spot in the NCAA's all four years of her collegiate career (2011-14), swimming in three of those championship meets after injury held her out of the 2013 event, while Cheung is a two-time qualifier in both the 100 and 200 fly in 2014 and 2016. 

Most recently, Laughlin competed in the 200 IM, 400 IM, and 200 back at the 2019 NCAA Championships, posting a career-best time in the 200 IM (1:59.06) to finish 48th overall when she opened her second career trip to the championship meet. She also went on to finish 41st in the 400 IM with a time of 4:17.76 and 38th in the 200 back with a time of 1:55.34. The Ventura-native will now set her sights on the 2020 Olympic Trials. 

The Aggies have also experienced similar success in the classroom, earning a total of 118 MPSF All-Academic Team citations in the last nine seasons -- including a record 17 honorees in 2017. In addition, the team has earned a spot on the College Swimming Coaches Association of America's (CSCAA) honor roll in each of the last ten terms dating back to the fall of 2013 -- the only MPSF member to earn such a distinction in every term during that span.

Owning the unusual distinction of earning Coach of the Year honors in four different conferences, Jahn captured the award numerous times in the NCAA Division II Northern California Athletic Conference, won it again in the team's final team of the multi-divisional Pacific Collegiate Swimming Conference in 2003, won it again in the Big West Conference's final season of sponsorship in 2010, and has twice been named the winner by her peers as a member of the MPSF in 2011 and 2013.

Outside of her coaching responsibilities, Jahn is a respected member of the faculty at UC Davis, teaching a number of aquatics courses in the exercise biology program.

A 1973 graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Jahn was also a diver for the Gauchos. She received her degree from UCSB in cultural anthropology with minors in ergonomics and coaching and earned her master's degree in kinesiology from UCLA in 1975. She and her husband, Tom, reside in El Macero.