Coaching Experience
- Head Coach, Nebraska, 2001-Present (22nd Season in 2022-23)
- Head Coach, USA Swimming Diversity Select Camp, 2007
- Associate Head Coach, San Jose Aquatics, 2000-01
- Head Coach, San Jose State, 1998-2001
- Graduate Assistant, Stanford, 1997-98
- Assistant Coach, San Jose Aquatics, 1995-96
- Graduate Assistant, Cornell, 1989-91
- Head Coach, Stanford Masters Swim Program, 1988-89
Honors & Awards
- Big 12 Coach of the Year (2004)
- WAC Coach of the Year (2000)
- Five-Time Olympic Medalist (3 Gold, 2 Silver)
- 11-Time NCAA Champion
- CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame
Pablo Morales continues to see the Nebraska swimming and diving program climb in national prominence in and out of the water in his 22nd season leading the Husker program.
In the 2021-22 season, Autumn Haebig led the charge in the pool, making her fourth trip to the NCAA Championships and earning a spot on the podium at the Big Ten Championships in the 200 freestyle with a sixth-place finish. The season was marked by breakout performances across the board, with underclassmen stepping up as leaders in the pool, including Maia Hall who swam in the B-finals in both the 100- and 200-breaststroke and managed to climb the Nebraska record boards.
In 2021, Nebraska earned its best team finish since 2001, placing 26th at the NCAA Championships. Led by a pair of first-team All-America performances by diver Abigail Knapton and two more All-America efforts by swimmer Haebig, the Huskers just missed a top-25 team finish.
Knapton became the first diver or swimmer in school history to earn first-team All-America honors four times in the same event (platform). The six-time All-American was also the Big Ten Diver of the Championships after winning gold in both the platform and one-meter dives, while taking second on the three-meter board. A CoSIDA first-team Academic All-American as well, Knapton was chosen as Nebraska’s Female Student-Athlete of the Year and Best Female Athlete across all sports. An NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship award winner, Knapton was also one of 30 finalists for NCAA Woman of the Year honors. She also went on to be the only diver at the Olympic Trials to finish among the top eight in all three competitive dives.
Haebig added nearly as impressive of a season in the pool and is poised for even bigger accomplishments in her final season in 2021-22. Nebraska’s first Big Ten champion after winning the 200 freestyle, Haebig added a top-eight finish in the 500 free. She took ninth in the 200 free at the NCAA Championships before adding a 14th-place finish in the 500 free. She became the first Husker swimmer to earn a pair of All-America awards at the same championship since 2001. She went on to advance to Wave II at the U.S. Olympic Trials in the summer of 2021.
In 2020, three Husker swimmers (Haebig, Coffey, Troyer, Madison Coughlen) qualified for the NCAA Championships. The national meet was ultimately canceled due to the world-wide outbreak of the coronavirus, but the four Huskers combined for five CSCAA All-America awards.
In 2019, Nebraska captured its fourth consecutive top-40 finish at the NCAA Championships by taking 33rd. Knapton captured her third consecutive first-team All-America honor on the platform, while adding an honorable-mention accolade in the three-meter dive.
In 2018, Nebraska finished 35th at the NCAA Championships, as Knapton captured first-team All-America honors on the platform for the second straight season. She was joined at the NCAA Championships by Haebig.
The Big Red took 33rd at nationals in 2017, when Knapton finished fourth on platform to capture her first All-America award.
In 2016, the Huskers finished 39th at the NCAA Championships, which included a 10th-place finish on the one-meter board by Anna Filipcic.The Huskers have sent at least one diver to the NCAA Championships in seven consecutive seasons.
Nebraska’s rise in the pool and the diving well has occurred while maintaining elite performances in the classroom. In addition to Knapton’s first-team CoSIDA Academic All-America award in 2021, Lindsay Helferich captured second-team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors after closing her career with a perfect 4.0 GPA as a civil engineering major in 2019. As a whole, Nebraska leads all of NCAA Division I with 347 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans all time across all sports.
Nebraska posted a program-record 3.747 GPA in the spring of 2020 to earn CSCAA Scholar All-America recognition as a team. Nebraska has been honored for 14 straight semesters by the CSCAA and the team has posted better than a 3.2 GPA for 18 consecutive semesters. In fact, the swimming and diving program owned the best GPA of any Nebraska team for three consecutive seasons (2015, 2016, 2017) to win the school’s Herman Team GPA Award.
Nebraska’s increased competitiveness in the pool and impressive success in the classroom and community are a far cry from the starting point of the Husker program when Morales took over the job in 2001. In his first season at NU, the Huskers went winless in 2001-02 (0-3) with a depleted roster.
Three years later, NU raced to an 8-1 dual record in 2004-05 and became the first Husker swimming and diving team in school history to win eight consecutive meets. Most importantly, Morales led the Huskers out of the bottom of the Big 12 with a fourth-place finish in 2004 and a third-place showing in 2005. Nebraska has continued to pursue a climb in conference prominence as it has transitioned to the Big Ten.
The Huskers are working to regain the national prowess they enjoyed in the 1990s, when they captured five Big Eight and Big 12 titles from 1994 to 1999.
A 1987 graduate of Stanford University, Morales is one of the greatest male swimmers in U.S. history, winning an NCAA-record 11 individual titles. He also helped lead the Cardinal to three consecutive NCAA titles and four Pac-10 titles, while twice earning Pac-10 Swimmer-of-the-Year honors and garnering six Pac-10 titles himself.
Morales remains the all-time leading scorer at the NCAA Championships, amassing 235 points. Morales was also the recipient of the 1987 Al Masters Award, which is Stanford’s highest award for athletic performance, leadership and academic performance. He was the first male swimmer to win the award, and remains one of two to have accomplished that feat. Morales holds the Stanford record in the 200-yard butterfly (1:42.60) and held the school record in the 100-yard fly (46.25) until it was broken in 1998 by Sabir Muhammad (46.18).
While at Stanford, Morales was awarded the J.E. Sterling Award, which is presented to a student-athlete based on scholarship, leadership and community service. In addition, he served as the director of the Stanford Volunteers for Youth Program. Morales also found time to become a mainstay on the campus newspaper as the beat writer for the women’s basketball team.
A CoSIDA Academic All-America selection in 1987, Morales earned a law degree from Cornell in June of 1994, despite taking two years off from law school to train and compete at the Olympics.
An Olympic swimmer, Morales won three gold and two silver medals in the 1984 and 1992 Games, serving as a team captain for the 1992 squad. Following the 1992 Games, in which he returned to the pool after a three-year layoff to capture a gold medal in the 100-meter butterfly, Morales was named the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Sportsman of the Year. He held the U.S. Open and NCAA record in the 100-yard fly with a time of 46.26, which stood for 13 years before being broken at the 1999 NCAA Championships.
Among Morales’ greatest swimming accomplishments in the pool is holding the world record in the 100-meter butterfly with a time of 52.84 from 1986 until 1995.
Morales’ legend in the Olympic Games lives on today, as the Nebraska coach served on the bid committee for the 2008 U.S. Olympic swimming trials that took place in Omaha. Morales had the chance to see the selection process and serve a role in the decision that gave Nebraska its first Olympic event in state history.
The Swimming Trials were a resounding success, and Omaha proved to be a worthy host for the event. More than 160,000 fans attended the event, shattering the previous mark by more than 50,000. In 2016, the U.S. Olympic Trials made their third consecutive appearance in Omaha, and more than 200,000 fans sold out every session of the event.
The 2020 Trials returned to Omaha in the summer of 2021, after a one-year delay caused by the coronavirus
pandemic.
Before coming to Nebraska, Morales served as the head women’s swimming coach at San Jose State University. He held the reins as head coach from 1998 until being named coach at Nebraska in July of 2001. Morales rejuvenated a Spartan program that was near the bottom of the Western Athletic Conference. He was named the 2000 WAC Coach of the Year for his efforts.
While at San Jose State, Morales rebuilt a program and took the Spartans to the NCAA Championships after a 14-year absence. During his tenure, Morales produced six academic All-WAC swimmers. At the 2001 WAC Championships, five Spartans set school records under Morales’ supervision, and three met NCAA qualification times. Seven others swam times that placed among the top three in school history.
Before his stint at SJSU, Morales was an assistant at his alma mater, Stanford, in 1997-98, helping lead the squad to the NCAA team title.
Morales also served as a graduate assistant at Cornell while pursuing his law degree. While at Cornell, Morales prepared and coached daily workouts for swimmers and assisted in recruiting. Morales has assisted in coaching with the San Jose Aquatics club group, as well as serving as head coach of the Stanford Masters Swim Team.
For Morales, the opportunity to coach at Nebraska was a welcome challenge.
“As a coach, taking over the responsibilities at Nebraska represents a great opportunity to take a program with success and use the resources that only Nebraska can offer, the support from the athletic department, the University, the Lincoln area and the state, to take the program to a higher level,” Morales said after he was hired. “Our goal is to take this program to the elite national level.”
A powerful motivator, Morales hopes to keep his swimmers on the top of their games in and out of the pool, as Nebraska has established itself among the nation’s best in academic support and athletics. Over the past nine seasons, nearly 80 percent of Morales’ student-athletes have been named to the conference or Nebraska Scholar-Athlete Honor Roll each semester.
“I want our swimmers to achieve their goals of faster times and lifetime bests,” Morales said. “I want them to have the best season that they have ever had, and I also want us to establish a team atmosphere and build an excitement toward Husker swimming and diving.”
Former Stanford Head Coach Skip Kenny, who coached Morales at Stanford and also with Team USA, spoke highly of his former pupil.
“He’s one of the most honest people that you will meet,” Kenny said. “You will always get the truth out of him. He’s very dedicated to the sport of swimming and to his athletes.
“As soon as the swimmers spend a few days or weeks with him, they will see how much he cares about them and the sport of swimming.”
Kenny said Morales may have greater potential as a coach than swimmer.
“I honestly believe that he is a better coach than he was a swimmer, and that is saying a lot since he was one of the best swimmers in the world. He has done things with kids that I thought I would never see. If there is a female swimmer out there that wants to be the best in the world, I’d send her to swim for Pablo.”
Morales’ experiences as an NCAA and international swimmer, and a club and collegiate coach helps him in coaching and recruiting.
“In my experiences, I have been fortunate to have had a long career as a competitor. I was able to train with coaches who I think are some of the best in the world,” Morales said. “I have learned from them, and I have learned from myself. I believe that all of my experiences have prepared me for coaching. I have a good feel for the contours of teams that are successful. I know how they practice, train and compete.”
A gifted and noted public speaker and lecturer, Morales was a contributing author to The Swim Coaching Bible, published in 2001. In April of 2007, he was chosen as the U.S. Swimming Diversity Select Camp Head Coach, a four-day camp at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Aside from in-pool training, Morales also led motivational and educational sessions and team-building activities for boys and girls from all over the nation. These children were a part of an ethnically under-represented population that is less than 20 percent of the current USA Swimming membership.
Pablo is the son of Pedro and the late Blanca Morales, who came to the United States from Cuba in 1956. Pablo and his wife, Viviana, have four boys, Sam (23), Benjamin (20), Eli (18) and Gustavo (11).
Morales was born in Chicago and grew up in Santa Clara, Calif. He enjoys golfing in his spare time.