"Jabs is a great guy and you can tell he loves ECU. He always believed in me and encouraged me to be myself in a sport where everyone is pretty cookie cutter and dare I say … Bland! most importantly, he prioritizes you as a person/academics over swim always. In my experience however, he is a bit disorganized and tends to be too involved with teammate drama. This always came off a bit unprofessional to me. "

"I never met anyone as committed to a program as Jabs is. East Carolina swim and dive is easily one of the most important things to him, and he expects his athletes to hold the program with the same importance. Jabs will not coddle you, will not tolerate anything less than your best effort, and will turn a cold shoulder on athletes who prove time and time again that they are unwilling to work. And you know what that's D1 swimming. No coach is entirely responsible for creating team culture, and Jabs did more than his part in facilitating team events hosting team bonding at his own home, taking time out of practice to address group issues, and when the underclassmen on the team told him they were having a meeting to discuss how they can make the team culture better when they were upperclassmen since the upperclassmen attitudes were so atrocious it was effecting all their experiences he bought them all their own pizza. It's true we had a 10 pm practice on new years eve to prevent girls from making irresponsible choices. It was the best practice ever, we did fun races and to this day the team laughs about it. It is also true that the team had to do a punishment run, but only the fastest girl on the team actually ran 7 miles. The punishment run was a generous punishment since half the team violated a contract they signed only 2 weeks before, most coaches would have kicked those athletes off their team, but Jabs made us run, and then fully forgave every athlete and never brought up the issue again. You can say Jabs has favorite athletes. His favorite athletes are the ones who are coachable and try their best every day. I am definitely not the best swimmer on the team, but Jabs continues to train me and ensures me that I will always have a place on the team if I continue to work hard. All the girls who want to berate his coaching style never attended optional swims nor took accountability for their career by going to him to ask for assistance. The lanes are not set up depending on how much Jabs likes each girl. They are split into practice groups to help individualize the training for each girl. HE customizes the groups and lanes every single day. Jabs also hired two young coaches in the 2024-2025 season. He has let them take the lead in multiple practices and has changed much of the practice style to match the style these coaches have seen competing at higher levels. Jabs is also understanding when it comes to personal life and academics he will let girls take time off of practice who are struggling a lot in school, he is on top of watching grades to make sure we are getting the help we need in school, and gets on our a*s to get help when are grades are slipping. He will also work with your school schedule even when he basically has to make you an entirely different weekly schedule. Jabs also stays appropriately involved in the athletes personal life, he will remember the different events going on in your life, and ask how they are going. As for the rumor training trip "drinking" this information was shared by an assistant coach who no longer works with the team who developed many unprofessional relationship with athletes and was out to harm Jabs reputation. Jabs works tirelessly to push this team to the next level. He has a big vision for the program. Jabs is a great coach but he is only human he is going to make mistakes the athletes coming on this site to bash on his reputation are not a reflection of East Carolina University, and are honestly cowards that they couldn't have a conversation with him. If you are thinking about coming to ECU please come on a visit. "

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