John Brooks spent nine seasons as the head coach of the BYU swimming and diving program from 2012-2021. During his tenure, the Cougar men’s team advanced to the NCAA Championships twice, including a 23rd place finish in 2015 and 21st place finish in 2016. BYU has also won four MPSF titles. He was named MPSF Coach of the Year twice.
BYU has had four All-Americans with nine citations under Brooks. In conference, BYU has claimed 62 individual champions, six Freshmen of the Year, two Swimmers of the Year and two Divers of the Year since Brooks took over the program.
Before being named head coach, Brooks was an assistant coach at BYU from 2008-12, serving as recruiting coordinator and position coach for the distance swimmers. During that time the Cougars captured three women’s conference titles while the men placed in the top 25 at the NCAA Championships in 2010 and won a conference title in 2012.
Before coming to BYU, Brooks was an assistant swim coach at UNLV from 2007-08 where he helped the Rebels win conference titles both seasons and had seven swimmers qualify for the NCAA Championships. Prior to UNLV, Brooks spent the previous year as an assistant at the University of Utah where he coached four athletes that qualified for the NCAA Championships.
In addition to his full-time collegiate coaching experience, Brooks has worked in various capacities with several universities, including Stanford and Alabama. He also served as a guest coach at Georgia with former U.S. Olympic coach Jack Bauerle. Brooks has coached swimmers that have competed at USA Junior and Senior Nationals, Olympic Trials and the Olympic Games.
Brooks was the head swim coach at East High School in Salt Lake City from 2001-04, where he guided East to state titles in 2003 and 2004 after a second-place finish in 2002. For his efforts he was named UHSAA 4A Coach of the Year in both 2002 and 2004.
Brooks is a 2003 economics graduate from the University of Utah where he lettered in swimming. He served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brussels, Belgium, before marrying his wife, Katie. The couple has two sons and a daughter.
