You may have thought it a bold risk when Brenau Athletics Director Mike Lochstampfor tapped a one-time lifeguard at Brenau’s fitness center, a young woman who had graduated from college herself only a year earlier, to take the helm of the university’s intercollegiate swimming team. Now, fast-forward two years. Lochstampfor’s “big risk,” Blaire Bachman, then youngest head coach in intercollegiate sports, not only guided her team to a No. 8 national ranking, but also won Coach of the Year honors from the Appalachian Swimming Conference.

“From the moment she started, she has inspired and challenged her team to be the best swimmers they can be,” Lochstampfor says. “Through her training methods and recruiting efforts, she has taken the program to a new level.

Bachman started her collegiate swim career at University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky, where she was a scholastic All-American. She graduated in 2009 from Georgia College & State University, where Lochstampfor says she single- handedly organized, coached and publicized the GCSU Swim Cats Swim Club. She was a volunteer assistant to BU swimming in 2007-08. Despite her youthful appearance (not to mention what one might consider some discrepancies in the normal calendar arc in a career) she recently picked up another honor – a certificate at the spring faculty-staff recognition lunch attesting to the fact that she has been on the university’s payroll for 10 years. Bachman has been involved with Brenau since 2001, starting as a teenager as a lifeguard and swim instructor, conducting private and semi-private lessons for all ages. She also squeezed in some time to help build another swim club in the area as well as a stint with a public relations agency in Tallahassee, Fla,, once she got her degree. That’s where Lochstampfor actually found her when he went looking for a new coach.

However, in the athletics director’s book, hiring Bachman was no gamble. “Coach Bachman has done a tremendous job of elevating the stature of our swim program both regionally and nationally.”