Brendon Bray recently completed his third season at North Texas, having led the Mean Green to a fourth-place finish at the Conference USA Championships, the best team finish since joining the league for the 2013-14 season.
The league championships capped one of the most successful seasons in school history, as they finished with the second-most dual-meet wins (7-4) and second-best winning percentage (.636) in school history.
Freshman Rebekah Bradley earned all-conference honors in the 100 backstroke and 200 backstroke, including a first-place finish in the 200 backstroke that is the first for the program since joining the league.
Sophomore Claudia Kitching also earned all-conference honors in the 100 breaststroke and 200 breaststroke. The duo combined for 15 NCAA B time standards in those four events, and Bradley also set the school record in the 100 backstroke with a time of 53.13 in the preliminaries of the Conference USA Championships.
In 2014-15, he led North Texas to its second straight fifth-place finish at the Conference USA Championships. He guided the Mean Green to a 4-4 record, including a 3-1 start, the best start in program history. The team earned all-conference honors in the 400 medley relay and 400 IM.
Seniors Krista Rossum and Mona Groteguth set three program records and notched NCAA B-qualifying times in five events. Rossum’s program-best marks came in the 200 IM (2:00.35) and 400 IM (4:15.22) in consecutive days at the C-USA meet, while Groteugth claimed the 200 backstroke record (1:56.20) at Incarnate Word’s Christmas Invitational.
In 2013-14, the team’s first season in C-USA, Mean Green swimmers set four program records and achieve NCAA B-qualifying times in three events. Rossum originally broke the school record in the 400 individual medley at the Houston Invitational and then went on to break it again at the conference championships finishing with a 4:16.95 time. Groteguth set program records in the 100 backstroke (54.02) and 200 backstroke (1:56.62), accomplishing both feats at the Houston Invitational. On the boards, Catherine Johnson and Rebecca Taylor qualified and competed at their third straight NCAA Zone D diving championships.
Outside of the pool, the Mean Green have received the Spring Scholar All-America Team Award for having one of the top GPA’s in the nation in Division I women’s swimming and diving in each of the last three seasons. In the fall semester of 2015, the North Texas women combined to record a 3.55 team grade average, tied for 15th nationally among Division I programs that earned Scholar All-America honors, first among schools in Texas and second among Conference USA schools.
Rossum and Groteguth earned Conference USA All-Academic honors during each of Bray’s first two seasons, with Rossum receiving the Conference USA Scholar Athlete of the Year Award in swimming and diving in each of those two seasons. In Bray’s third season, junior Samantha Scheck was one of 13 swimmers and divers selected to the Conference USA All-Academic team.
Bray arrived at North Texas from San Diego State, he served as the associate head coach for the Aztecs while they achieved a peak dual meet ranking of No. 23 in the country by the CSCAA. After his promotion to associate head coach, SDSU compiled a 26-1 dual meet record and became an annual participant at the NCAA Championships. Bray helped coach all 13 individual NCAA championship participants including five honorable All-American performances, which represented both the first individual and relay points scored by SDSU at the NCAA Championships.
Before his tenure at SDSU, the program had finished last at the conference meet for five straight seasons, and in four seasons, helped the team to their first Mountain West Championship in 2011, and then repeated as league champions in 2013. In his six seasons at San Diego State, He coached three MWC Swimmers of the Year and helped the Aztecs break school records in every swimming and diving event in his six seasons.
Bray began his coaching career in the Pac-12 Conference at his alma mater, Washington. He served as an undergraduate assistant in 2004-05, before spending two more seasons as a men’s and women’s assistant coach from 2005-07. During his time at Washington, he coached several NCAA Championships participants and helped recruit the top-ranked recruit in the country, according to collegeswimming.com.
Bray also swam three years for Washington and one year at the University of Utah. Bray was a senior national qualifier and Pac-12 championship participant during his time at UW. Bray graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Washington in 2005, and earned his master’s degree in intercollegiate athletic leadership through the department of education at Washington in 2007. Bray was born in San Francisco, California and has lived in Sacramento, California and Reno, Nevada.
BRAY FILE:
2000-2001: student/athlete at University of Utah
2001-2004: student/athlete at University of Washington
2004-2005: undergraduate assistant at University of Washington
2005-2007: assistant men's and women's swim coach at University of Washington
2007-2011: assistant women's swim coach at San Diego State
2011-2013: associate head swim coach at San Diego State
2013-present: head coach at University of North Texas
