Swimming & Diving
- Title:
- Assistant Swimming Coach
- Email:
- peterscb@email.unc.edu
- Phone:
- 919-962-6000
U.S. National Team swimmer, ACC champion and NCAA All-America Chip Peterson was named the volunteer assistant swimming coach at the University of North Carolina on September 11, 2013.
“Chip was a highly accomplished member of the UNC team, excelling in the classroom and pool,” said UNC had coach Rich DeSelm. ”He is currently on the USA Swimming National Open Water team and earned many accolades both prior to arriving at UNC as a freshman in 2006 and during his highly successful career at UNC. Our swimmers definitely benefit from Chip’s input.”
Peterson, who still actively competes in open water swimming and was named in September 2013 and again in September 2014 to the U.S. Swimming National Team in that discipline, has been coaching with the North Carolina Aquatic Club over the past two years and continues in that role.
A native of Pine Knoll Shores, N.C., Peterson is a 2010 UNC alumnus. He won the Patterson Medal as UNC’s outstanding men’s senior student-athlete that year, the first UNC men’s swimmer to win it since Harrison Merrill in 1965. He was also named the ACC Men’s Swimming Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2010 and was a three-time member of the All-ACC Academic Team as an undergraduate.
Before attending Carolina, Peterson won the U.S. and world championships in 10 kilometer open water swimming in 2005. He continued to excel as a Tar Heel, twice being named All-ACC and in 2010 capping his career with the ACC championship in the 1650-yard freestyle. He earned NCAA All-America honors in 2007, 2009 and 2010, missing only in 2008 when he sat out the season to train with the U.S. National Open Water Swimming Team full-time. He earned All-America honors in both the 500-yard freestyle and 1650-yard freestyle as a collegian.
Peterson is a two-time gold medalist at the Pan American Games in 2007 and 2015. He also won a silver in 2007. This past summer he won the gold in 10 kilometer open water swimming at the Toronto Pan Ams.
