The morning of December 17th, 2022 was cold and partly cloudy — not atypical for a winter Saturday. With finals half-completed and suitcases already half-packed, campus buzzed in anticipation of winter break.
For Duke’s swimmers, the most pressing worry was how many bathing suits they would need to pack over break. The team eagerly awaited its annual training trip to Aruba, where warm temperatures and time on the beach promised to balance out the week’s notoriously grueling, high-intensity practices.
Then a devastating announcement rocked the team: Dan Colella, Duke’s head coach in his 17th season, had died the previous night after a battle with lung cancer.
Kaelyn Gridley, a bubbly sophomore and Duke’s fiercest breaststroker, quieted when she remembered the moment.
“It was hard losing people that we had become very close with,” she told The Chronicle. “I mean, I was only a freshman. But I was pretty close with the staff. And after we'd been through a lot together it was difficult to say goodbye.”
Colella had built an esteemed reputation throughout the swimming community for his excellence as a mentor and leader. In his 17 years as head coach, he tallied 13 appearances at NCAA championships and produced at least one ACC individual winner at seven conference championships. The program’s record books were continuously rewritten under his tenure, with swimmers toppling 10 records in the 2021-22 season alone. His loss was a tragic blow to the fabric of the team.
“The way that our season ended last year was definitely hard for everyone,” Gridley said.
The Blue Devils had only a month to deal with the news — and struggle through coaching turnover — before they returned to competition. When they did, Duke fell to both N.C. State and North Carolina in its final two dual meets. After the women’s team rebounded to place fifth at the ACC Championships for the second year in a row, the season concluded on an unresolved note. It was unclear whose shoulders the future of Duke swimming and diving would rest upon.
Sarah Foley, a serious-faced senior, record-holding 200 IM-er and team leader, spoke about the uncertain ripple effects of Colella’s death ahead of her final season.
“Dan was my primary coach for my full time here,” she said. “So coming into this, I kind of knew, obviously, coaching style would be different. My relationship with the coach would be different.”
The road to Duke
Not until May 2023, nearly five months after Colella’s death, was the new director of Duke swimming and diving announced. Brian Barnes — a thin, spry man with a serious face but friendly smile — would take over as the program’s head coach.
Prior to joining the Blue Devils, Barnes spent three years as the assistant coach at N.C. State. While he worked there in 2021, the Wolfpack finished a program-best No. 2 in the ACC. Barnes also oversaw 10 first-team All-Americans and eight second-team All-Americans at the 2023 Women’s NCAA Championships, where Wolfpack swimmers broke the school record in the 200-medley relay. His experience and passion for coaching made him a promising fit for Duke.
“Not only did it check so many boxes for me,” Barnes said. “I always wanted to feel that … I'm attracting student athletes to come get a world class degree. I believe swimming and diving here is not incidental. I think it's an integral part of their education.”
But coming to Duke posed additional challenges, especially given the turbulent end to the previous season. For one, Barnes knew none of the swimmers. Everyone from the veterans to the newly recruited freshman were total strangers.
“I spent the majority of the summer on the phone getting to know them,” he said. “My vision this year was to get to know them over an outcome. I only have one year with the senior class. And so it was important for me to … spend time with them, because I didn't recruit one of them.”
As both he and the swimmers will tell you, that meant lots of team bonding: Not just phone calls, but also team breakfasts and even a sock party during the holidays.
“Everyone brought a pair of socks and it was kind of like a white elephant,” Gridley said, laughing. “You could either open up a new one, or steal some socks, and while it was definitely a little weird, it was actually really fun. And everyone had a really good time, which is just an example of how he's really brought us together as a team.”
Beyond getting to know the athletes, Barnes brought a new energy to Duke’s program. He cited early work experience at Auburn and Notre Dame as a major influence on his coaching attitude and the zeal he likes to see on the pool deck.
“[At Auburn] I was just just surrounded by hardworking, ambitious people,” he explained. “And it was very clear to me that that's the type of people I need to surround myself with for the rest of my career.”
That’s exactly what he did when he came to Duke. Barnes added three new assistant coaches to the Blue Devil family, including Coleman Stewart, a previous backstroke world-record holder from N.C. State. The Blue Devils quickly noticed a new energy on deck.
“I would say the team is definitely a lot more lively now,” Gridley said.
Relationships are everything for Barnes. He has turned community into the crux of his coaching philosophy.
“My goal is for [the swimmers] to be 100% comfortable in being themselves, and if we can get there I get a chance to see their full potential,” he said.
But swimmers on the team, still reckoning with the loss of their coach, said that Barnes has been cognizant of Duke’s program’s history and turnover. Foley explained that his excitement for the future of the program has not interfered with respect for its past.
“Brian definitely brought a lot of excitement when he came to the job,” she said. “He was the right fit in terms of what the program was becoming in the future … [But] he was very in tune with how the team was feeling … and wanted to make a point that Dan still has a legacy here.”
“He saw so much potential in us and was super excited to work with us, but also understood that we'd been through a lot,” Gridley said.
New intensity
Now that he knows his athletes, Barnes can hold them to a high bar in the water — one that includes challenging and individually tailored practices. This rigor — and, at the same time, flexibility — was a major contributor to this season’s success.
“It's just very specific, intense training,” Gridley said. “After last year, it was definitely a jump. But he has been very supportive and motivational pretty much the whole time. And, like, he would never try and throw something at us that he doesn't think we're capable of.”
“He's very individualistic in training,” Foley said. “He's very go-with-the-flow and willing to change your workout. It's very much a two-way street in terms of your training.”
Together, these factors have led Duke’s program to new heights. Over the course of the 2023-24 season, the Blue Devils broke nine school and two pool records. The women also achieved the highest point total at a single ACC Championship meet in program history, tallying 779.5 points at the 2024 competition to land their third-consecutive top-five finish. The program sent 13 female athletes to the 2023-24 NCAA Championships in Athens, Ga., where they toppled school records in three relays and the 100-yard backstroke. There, the team’s final point total of 80 resulted in a 16th-place finish — the highest ever in program history. Each impressive statistic highlights Barnes’ commitment to the team’s success.
“I committed to Duke and in my time here at Duke, we've kind of been a team on the rise in the ACC and nationally,” Foley said. “That was something that Dan was really proud of, but also he was super motivated to get to that next level. And I think that Brian recognized that … and I think he has the right foundation that he's laying down now, to then do that for the team.”
Barnes has already built upon Colella’s vision of a next-level team by emphasizing and revitalizing its principles and philosophies. He is the core of a new Duke swim and dive program, representing the very characteristics he says define the team: “heart, perseverance [and] determination.”
“It’s a bit of a pinch-me career,” Barnes said.
His vision of Blue Devil potential has managed to put the program in an exciting position for the first time in a long time — one at, in his words, the “crossroads of hard work and opportunity.”
When the training trip rolled around this December, emotions were much lighter. The swimmers and divers again made it to Aruba to enjoy the surf and sunshine, far more certain about what awaited them when they returned home.
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