​Andy Johns

Andy Johns, winner of 10 consecutive Western Athletic Conference titles, enters his 28th season as the Northern Arizona head swimming & diving coach in 2023-2024. Together with Diving Coach Nikki Kelsey, the two coaches have turned the Lumberjacks into one of the premier programs in the West, with Johns receiving coach of the year honors eight times since joining the WAC in 2005.

Throughout his tenure at the helm of the Lumberjacks, Johns has consistently produced championship caliber teams in addition to developing a program that is equally exceptional in the classroom as it is in the pool.

During the 2022-23 campaign, Johns led the Lumberjacks to victories over both Washington State and New Mexico. At the invitational level, Northern Arizona finished second at the UNLV Invitational behind only UCLA. The Lumberjacks would eventually defend their WAC championship with an 835 point performance in February. The season saw both Haley Mayhew and Casey Craffey break school records, with Mayhew breaking the NAU record in the 200 breaststroke (2:12.95) and the 200 IM (2:00.04). Craffey set a new Lumberjack records in the 1000 free (9:59.05) and broke a 29-year long record in the 500 free (4:46.38).

In the pool, the Lumberjacks have captured 62 individual and relay conference titles, 126 school records (a high of 11 set at the 2009 WAC meet), nine conference records and 49 NCAA qualifying marks under Johns' tutelage. In the classroom, his student-athletes have posted cumulative grade-point averages of 3.50 and higher in 8 of the past 10 academic semesters. The Lumberjacks are consistently among the best programs the league in placing student-athletes on the WAC All-Academic lists with 25 earning the honor last year. NAU has been recognized 16 times as an Academic All-America Team by the Collegiate Swim Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) including last year's squad which posted a 3.66 grade point average in the spring of 2023. NAU's team GPA under Johns is the highest of any of the four major swim and dive programs in the state of Arizona.

Along with building a total program that produces student-athletes to the very definition, Johns' tenure has included several major moments for NAU swimming & diving. Johns navigated NAU from the Pacific Collegiate Swimming Conference to its first all-Division I affiliation in the National Independent Conference (NIC) in 1998-99, followed by the program's move to the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) prior to the 2004-05 season.

Johns followed up his first WAC championship with a successful title defense during the 2014-15 season. In contrast to their third and fourth consecutive championships to follow, the Lumberjacks conquered the WAC despite winning just two individual gold medals. At the 2014 championships, senior Jordan Burnes won the 200 breaststroke and sophomore Kendall Brown in the 1650 freestyle while junior diver Chelsea Jackson and freshman Alina Staffeldt – NAU's Female Newcomer of the Year – won gold on 3-meter and in the 100 butterfly respectively in 2015.

Johns' first WAC Championship team ended the 2013-14 academic year with a flurry of scholastic accolades. NAU posted the seventh-best GPA in the nation during the Spring 2014 semester while seniors Andrea Derflinger, Emma Lowther and Stirling Smith were recipients of the prestigious NAU Gold Axe Award. Smith was also named NAU's Female Senior Student-Athlete of the Year award which marked the second straight year that the program produced the top female student-athlete at NAU following Fi Connell the year prior.

Before their current run of championships, Johns' Lumberjacks endured heartbreak with a narrow seven-point loss to San Jose State at the 2013 WAC meet. Despite falling just short of the program's first WAC Championship, freshman Ellie Morrissey was named the WAC Freshman of the Year at the conclusion of the meet with Nikki Kelsey receiving her second WAC Diving Coach of the Year award. NAU also won its first WAC medley relay title in the 400 medley relay, shattering the previous school record by nearly two seconds in the process.

While the program was reaching new heights within the conference, Johns led NAU to its first dual meet victory over Arizona State as well as fellow Pac-12 foe Washington State. The Lumberjacks also produced some of the top female student-athletes at NAU as Kristy Ardavanis (2012-13) and Rachel Palmer (2011-12) received the university's Female Athlete of the Year award. Meanwhile, Ellie Morrissey (2012-13) and Caitlin Wright (2011-12) were voted as NAU's Female Newcomers of the Year. The 'Jacks also reached a high-water ranking of a tie for sixth in the final CollegeSwimming.com 2013 Mid-Major Poll while tying for the sixth-best team GPA among all NCAA Division I women's swimming & diving programs in 2013, marking NAU's second consecutive top 10 academic GPA ranking nationally. In 2012-13, a pair of Lumberjacks received distinguished academic honors as Fi Connell was named NAU's Female Senior Scholar-Athlete of the Year and Palmer was voted to the Capital One Academic All-District 8 Women's At-Large First Team.

The Lumberjacks earned the runner-up title among nine teams in 2008-09 and finished second among eight teams during the 2007-08 season. At the 2009 WAC Championships, the Lumberjacks earned 43 All-WAC Awards and set 11 school records. The 11 school records still remains the most ever set at a conference meet during Johns' tenure, while the 43 All-WAC honors were topped by the 2015-16 team's 53 awards.

During NAU's first three seasons as an affiliate member of the WAC, Johns helped improve the Lumberjacks' fifth-place finish in their inaugural season in 2004-05 to a pair of third-place finishes. He was named WAC Coach of the Year in NAU's rookie season and was pivotal in coaching Alexis Buckley to the 2006 NCAA Championships in Athens, Ga. Buckley swam in both the 1,650 and 500 freestyle and became the first female swimmer at NAU to represent the Lumberjacks in 12 years.

Prior to joining the WAC, NAU finished second at the National Independent Conference (NIC) Championships in 2003-04 and Johns was named the NIC Women's Swimming Coach of the Year. NAU had seven individual conference champions, tying the team record for the most champions in a single conference meet. The Lumberjacks also set 10 school records, and earned two other honors in addition to Johns', as Nikki Huffman earned her fourth Diving Coach of the Year honor and then-sophomore Blair Buder was named the Female Diver of the Year.

Johns came to NAU in 1996 from Clemson, where he trained the sprinters, including one NCAA All-American. Prior to that, he spent three years as head coach at Northeast Missouri State (now Truman State). During his tenure, his teams set 45 school records and five athletes posted their first national qualifying times.

Johns is well-respected in the swimming research community, having presented at the American College of Sports Medicine national meeting twice, first about the effects of warm-up in 1991 and tapering in 1992. Johns is published in many sports medicine journals, including the International Journal of Sports Medicine and Medicine and Science in Sport in Exercise. He was awarded a research fellowship from the Institute of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina in 1990.

As a collegian at East Carolina, Johns helped his team to the Colonial Athletic Association title in 1989. Prior to ECU, he was a junior-college All-American, earning the honor eight times in two years at Broward (Fla.) Community College.

Outside of his time as a coach, Johns has performed with the Flagstaff Light Opera Company and is a member of The Flagstaff Master Chorale whom he sang with at Carnegie Hall in March 2012.

Johns received his bachelor's degree in physical education from ECU in 1989 and followed that with a master's in exercise physiology in 1991. Johns and his wife, Misha, have two daughters, Ali and Maddie, and have two grandchildren.