Kameron Chastain was a freshman on the University of Louisville swim team in Chris Lindauer’s second year as an assistant coach at his alma mater.
Lindauer coached him directly for two years, and after Chastain graduated in 2014, they became colleagues when Chastain joined him as an assistant coach.
This past school year, Lindauer moved up to associate head coach.
For the next school year, he is moving up to head coach but at a different place — the University of Notre Dame. That became official April 21.
Then earlier this month, he announced Chastain will be one of his three associate coaches.
“I’ve been working with him for a long time, and really, it was kind of a natural fit,” said Chastain, 30, a 2010 graduate of Seymour High School. “I am thankful to Chris for providing me with mentorship over the years as both a student-athlete as well as a colleague and now with an opportunity as a part of his staff in South Bend. This is an exciting transition for my family and I, and we’re excited to get to work.”
Another former Cardinal swimmer, Kelsi Worrell Dahlia, was hired right after Chastain. Lindauer is in the process of hiring the other associate coach.
“Kameron is the perfect fit for this position,” Lindauer said in a story posted at und.com.
“Having previously worked with him, Kameron exemplifies the character it will take to build Notre Dame swimming and diving into one of the top NCAA programs in the country,” Lindauer said. “His vision, drive, leadership and emphasis on the student-athlete experience allows him to get the most out of his student-athletes’ success in and out of the pool. Kameron has worked with numerous ACC and NCAA champions and has one of the most innovative minds in college coaching.”
Chastain began his career at UofL after a successful four years at SHS, where he was the 100-yard breaststroke state champion in 2010, seven-time school record holder, six-time all-American and three-year all-state member.
He then lettered for the Cardinals from 2010 to 2014. He served as team captain his junior and senior years, was part of two conference team championships, competed in the NCAA swimming and diving championships all four years and was an all-Big East Conference and All-American Athletic Conference performer.
In all, he won nine conference championships and was part of the school-record ninth-place finish at the 2012 NCAA championships. He won conference titles in the 100-yard breaststroke, 200-yard breaststroke, 200-yard medley relay, 400-yard medley relay and 200-yard freestyle relay.
After earning a degree in exercise science in 2014, Chastain served as a volunteer assistant with the UofL team while coaching age group swimmers at Cardinal Aquatics.
Then in 2015, he became an assistant coach at his alma mater.
One of his first big projects was working with the volunteer assistant coach to create a pro swim event for alumni to come back and be part of, and they did that for a couple of years.
His role then shifted to administrative, primarily dealing with compliance.
“I would do things like keep track of the hours for our kids throughout the week. They had 20-hour limits (for practices), so I was the guy that was the checkpoint to make sure that people were still compliant when it came to number of hours,” he said. “Also, keeping track of team competitions, scheduling. I was involved in recruiting, but I wasn’t necessarily coordinating that. I was just a little bit more on the front of calling kids, calling coaches.”
Collegiate swimmers also are limited to competing 20 times per season, so Chastain was the adviser for the head coach on scheduling decisions.
He also was chosen to mentor the distance swimmers, which he initially found interesting because he wasn’t that type of swimmer in high school and college.
“Over time, I just learned it,” he said. “I tried to learn it as much as I could, tried to ask questions, tried to get with people that have had some experience and really just honestly grow the program in that way.”
Chastain oversaw the Cardinals earn an Atlantic Coast Conference men’s team title, four top-10 finishes between both squads at nationals and a number of individual champions on the national and international stage.
In each of his seven seasons at Louisville, at least one of the men’s or women’s teams finished in the top three in the conference meet, and both teams finished in the top three in six of those seasons.
In 2018-19, the women’s team recorded its highest finish at the NCAA championships in program history, finishing fourth overall with 235 points. Louisville became the first ACC program in history to have both its men’s and women’s teams finish in the top five at NCAAs in a single season, as the men finished fifth.
Chastain guided national record holders during his time in Louisville, including Worrell and Mallory Comerford.
In her final season with the Cardinals, Worrell won two NCAA titles, earned the Honda Award, was named a first team academic all-American and was named ACC Swimmer of the Year. She was one of seven Cardinals who went to the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016, and she won gold in the 400 medley relay.
Comerford won three straight ACC Women’s Swimmer of the Year honors working with Chastain and claimed two titles at the NCAA championships and three ACC championship gold medals in her final season with the Cardinals. In 2017, she won five gold medals at the FINA World Championships and tied for the NCAA title in the 200 freestyle with Katie Ledecky.
Chastain said he was fortunate to work with some of the most successful people in UofL swimming history.
“They all did different things, they all were successful in different things and so I was fortunate to go through the program and be able to work with them and work with athletes at such a high level,” he said. “Just to see what they do well and try to let that trickle down to the college team eventually when those guys went pro, it was cool to be able to mentor them through their college career and really see them take off the last two years of their college career.”
Now taking a step up in the college coaching world, Chastain said it’s a good fit because he has dreams to be an NCAA Division I head coach someday.
“This is something I talked with Chris about, that this is a step in that direction, and it allows me to get more experience and get my hands on different aspects of the program,” he said.
Coaching at Notre Dame also is a homecoming for Chastain.
“I am three hours away from home as opposed to one, but getting back into the state of Indiana, that was a huge draw for me, too,” he said. “There are many different things that played into it, but that’s certainly one of them.”
Chastain has been commuting from Louisville to South Bend to spend four or five days there. He and his wife, Lindsey, however, have sold their home in Louisville and bought one in South Bend, so they are looking forward to moving there with their son, Karsyn, who soon turns 2.
Kameron and Lindsey both were swimmers at UofL and graduated the same year. She is a certified public accountant for a small firm in Louisville and will transfer to one of its offices that serves northern Indiana and Michigan when they settle in South Bend.
“At the end of last season at NCAAs, (Lindauer) invited me up to South Bend to see the campus, and Lindsey and I went up there, and immediately, we were excited about it, not only where it is but the opportunity to explore other things,” Kameron said. “We’ve been in Louisville for 12 years now, and we’ve loved our time there and we’ve gotten some great things out of it, but we’re ready to take the next step.”
Chastain file
Name: Kameron Chastain
Age: 30
Hometown: Seymour
Residence: In the process of moving from Louisville, Kentucky, to South Bend
Education: Seymour High School (2010); University of Louisville (bachelor’s degree in exercise science, 2014)
Occupation: Recently named an associate coach for University of Notre Dame swimming and diving
Family: Wife, Lindsey Chastain; son, Karsyn “K.J.” Chastain; mother, Andrea Chastain; father, Brian Chastain; sister, Paiton Chastain
Read full bio: und.com/sports/swim/roster/season/2021-22/coach/kameron-chastain