University of Virginia strengthens coaching staff with additions of Gary Taylor and Magaret Zagrobelny
Virginia made the following hires to its swimming and diving coaching staff this week: Gary Taylor and Margaret Zagrobelny.
Taylor, the former head coach at Auburn University, was hired as the associate head coach on Monday, while Zagrobelny arrived Tuesday from Johns Hopkins University and will serve as an assistant coach.
Taylor was the head coach at Auburn University from 2018-21. In the fall of 2021, he moved to Charlottesville to become head coach of Cavalier Aquatics. He and the head coach at the University of Virginia Todd DeSorbo They went back to their days at North Carolina State, where they spent six seasons with the same coaching staff.
“I have known Gary for over 10 years and worked with him for the five years he was at NC State,” DeSorbo said in a university statement. “He is an incredible coach with a great vision, but even more so, he is a great person and friend. I have been fortunate to work with him for the past three years as he has led our local club, Cavalier Aquatics, to new heights and much success. He has led athletes to Olympic and World Championships, coached NCAA champions, and coached 9- and 10-year-old age group swimmers. He knows how to push athletes to be their best and how to make the sport fun at all levels. I am excited to have him join our staff and look forward to taking our program even further with Gary on board.”
Taylor's Tigers finished 12th at the NCAAs in his first season, but their numbers have slipped each year. Neither the men's nor women's teams earned a single point at the 2021 NCAAs, leading to a “mutual agreement to part ways.”
Taylor's time at NC State also marked the beginning of the program's rise. The men's team won three consecutive ACC titles and had three top-10 finishes at the NCAAs. The women's team won its first ACC crown in nearly three decades in 2017 and finished seventh at the NCAAs, its best result of the year. Taylor was a member of the distance group at Florida State for four years, spent three years with the Dynamo Swim Club in Atlanta and six years with the Twin Cities Swim Team in Minnesota, and participated in the Golden Gophers' 1998 Big Ten Championship.
“I am honored to have the opportunity to coach the University of Virginia Swimming and Diving team,” said Taylor. “Todd and his staff have done an outstanding job of building a culture of high expectations and performance both in and out of the pool. The University of Virginia Swimming and Diving team has a long and illustrious history, and during his time in Charlottesville, Coach DeSorbo set the standard for NCAA and Olympic success. I am excited to work with Todd again and look forward to a bright future.”
Zagrobelny has been with Johns Hopkins since 2018 and was promoted to associate head coach in 2022. Last year, she helped the Blue Jays reach 22 NCAA Division III championship appearances and the women's team finished in the top 15 for the fifth consecutive year. In seven seasons, she has led five national champions and 352 All-Americans and helped the Blue Jays' men's team to a national runner-up finish in 2022 and fourth-place finish twice, including in 2024.
She graduated from John Carroll University in 2017 and spent one season as an assistant at Susquehanna University.
