John Appleman
Elite/High Performance Director
John joined the Mission Viejo Nadadores Diving program as the Elite/High Performance Director in January of 2022. He comes to the program with 16 years of Head Coach experience at 3 different nationally ranked programs.
Most recently, John spent 3 years with working with the top athletes at the Woodlands Diving Academy including 2000 Olympic Gold Medalist Laura Wilkinson, 2016 Olympian Kassidy Cook and Junior World Champion Maria Coburn. Prior to the Woodlands Diving Academy, John spent a year working as the International coach for the divers at Purdue University where he worked with 2012 Olympic gold medalist David Boudia, 2016 Olympic Silver medalist Steele Johnson and 2020 Olympian Brandon Loschiavo. The 5 years prior to that, John was the Head Diving Coach for the Ohio State Diving Club and coached many of the nations top Junior and Senior athletes. While there, the club was the USA Diving Junior National Team Champions. The first 8 years of John’s coaching career was as the owner and Head Coach of Dominion Dive Club in Northern Virginia. While there, John coached multiple Junior National Champions and International medalists.
In totality, John has coached 47 Junior National Champions and 6 Senior National Champions. He has been selected as a Team USA Coach for 6 Junior World Championships, three times as Head Coach and 4 Junior Pan Am Championships, twice as Head Coach. He has been a Team USA Coach at the FINA World Championships, multiple FINA World Cups, FINA Grand Prix meets and FINA World Series. He has coached numerous Gold, Silver and Bronze medalists at both Junior and Senior International events.
John is extremely excited to be a part of the Nadadores family to help guide the program into the future in revolutionizing the development of Junior diving in our country. He lives in Mission Viejo with his wife of 6 years Kelli and their one year old son Finn. They all look forward to being a part of this community for many years to come.
