Even for someone seemingly no longer surprised by the depth of Dan Schemmel’s passion for swimming, the request had Michigan State coach Matt Gianiodis shaking his head.

“Danny asked me if he could get to the (NCAA swim) nationals in California whether he could sleep on my hotel room floor,” Gianiodis recalled.

The Spartans had some swimmers in the nationals that year and Schemmel, who barely made the team in the first place, was not close to being one of them.

“He just wanted to be there to root on his teammates, be on the deck, learn all there was and soak it in,” Gianiodis said.

“That impressed me, so I let him have the floor, and, I think, a pillow,” Gianiodis said.

People who know Schemmel say they aren’t surprised that, at barely 30 years of age, he has just been named the head coach of the University of Hawaii’s men’s and women’s swim programs.

“He’s young and enthusiastic,” said Jan Prins, a former UH coach.

Schemmel, a Wisconsin assistant for the past five seasons, succeeds Victor Wales, a four-time conference coach of the year, who left after 11 years for family reasons.

“Everybody we talked to in checking his references cited his energy level and passion,” said David Matlin, UH athletic director.

“‘Passion’” is a much more eloquent way to put it, (but) I have always classified myself as just a big swim nerd,” Schemmel said in a telephone interview from the Midwest, where he is recruiting. “I love the sport in every aspect.”

Schemmel walked on at Michigan State fully grasping, he said, “I wasn’t anywhere near their caliber” and persisting even after being cut his freshman year.

“I’ve known since my freshman year in high school that I wanted to be a collegiate coach and if I was going to (someday) coach in college, obviously I had to swim in college,” Schemmel said.

So he served as team manager the first year at Michigan State and then, trying again, made the team as a sophomore and junior. “He wasn’t that (fast), but he was difficult to cut,” Gianiodis said. “He was such a good person and hard worker that we really liked having him around.”

After Schemmel’s junior year, Gianiodis called him in for a heart-to-heart talk about the future. “I told him he was going to struggle to make the team again and didn’t want to have to cut a senior. I told him we wanted him to be a part of the team, to be a student coach. Not a manager, a legitimate member of the coaching staff. The thing is he always understood the sport and was good at knowing what he was doing, even if he wasn’t the fastest.”

Schemmel said “I understood that was a way to get my foot in the door (of coaching).”

Looking back, “I think it was the tipping point, the launching of what can be a great career,” Gianiodis said.