Last fall, Marywood University lost its first-ever Swimming and Diving Head Coach and Aquatics Director Greg Brown to Division I Florida Atlantic University, according to marywoodpacers.com.

In the summer of this year, Interim Head Coach and Aquatics Director Katherine Weaver left to pursue a doctorate degree in Physical Therapy.

This left the door open for Noah Beck. Beck just finished his second season at SUNY-Geneseo in Geneseo, New York as an assistant coach and aquatics director for the program.

With the Knights, Beck was a part of four State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) championship teams. He hopes to bring some of that success to Marywood’s program.

Beck spoke about transitioning from SUNY-Geneseo to Marywood.

“Going from a state university system to a small Catholic school is different, but it just seamlessly happened,” said Beck.

He also spoke about the challenges in transitioning from the assistant to head coach.

“Becoming a head coach, there is a lot of things that you didn’t have to deal with on a day-to-day basis as an assistant that you are now immersed in,” Beck said.

This season, both the women’s and men’s swimming and diving teams are currently 2-6 overall with a winless record (0-4) in the Landmark Conference.

Beck understands what he’s inherited with this year’s team.

“We are considerably smaller this year than we were last year,” said Beck. “We lost some really fantastic swimmers and divers to graduation, some to attrition after last year.”

With the odds against the Pacers, Beck has a positive outlook, saying the team has a mindset that they have something to prove.

Marywood has had bright spots this season. Senior Paul Kraycer and sophomore Mia Nardone were both given Landmark Conference Swimmer of the Week honors.

In addition, members of the swimming and diving program were recognized as scholar athletes, including graduate student Evan Romines, junior Allison McCarthy, Kraycer, junior Mike Freeman, and senior Joseph Buderwitz.

Even with the team stumbling out of the box, Beck has a bigger goal in mind.

“We want to get to a point where we are supporting everybody. One of my strongly held beliefs is that a team that is supporting, pushing each other, and having each other’s back is going to be faster at the end of the season,” said Beck.

Beck said he hopes this is the case coming down the stretch of the regular season.

The men have four more meets, including the SUNY-Geneseo Invitational in late January. The women also have four meets left, including two conference meets both in January.

Beyond this season, Beck hopes to leave his own mark.

“We hope to bring in student-athletes for the future [and] use the base, culture, and foundation we have now and build from there,” Beck said.

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Twitter: @JohnFerraro21