John 'Austin' Brasher was hired in July of 2019 as a Sports Performance Coordinator with LMU Athletics, and was promoted to Associate Director for Sports Performance in 2022.
As a sports performance coordinator with LMU, Brasher designs and oversees the strength and conditioning program for the baseball, men's soccer, women's soccer, and men's tennis teams.
Brasher also serves as the department's Internship Coordinator, guiding intern coaches through a 16-weeek curriculum covering the different aspects of sports performance.
Prior to joining the Lions, Brasher served as a Graduate Assistant Sports Performance Coach at Northwestern University, where he oversaw the programming for men's and women's swim and dive, fencing, and women's cross country. He helped lead the Wildcat fencing team to their second consecutive Conference Championship and a program-high #2 national ranking during his time. Prior to taking the job at Northwestern, Brasher had served as an Intern Athletic Performance Coach at UCLA in the Summer/Fall of 2017. After which, he was an Intern Coach for the Strength and Conditioning department at USC in the Spring of 2018.
Brasher is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) and holds a CPR/AED certification.
While working in his various strength and conditioning roles, Brasher has taught and applied weight training, running, agility, conditioning, and plyometric exercises. He has worked with athletes on mobility and flexibility, basic strength training patterns, Olympic lifting, and explosive training techniques. He also helped to train in core stabilization, speed development, and linear and lateral movement enhancement.
Brasher received his bachelor's degree in kinesiology from Whittier College in 2017, where he played football for the Poets for four years. Two of those years he was awarded All-SCIAC honors in his Junior and Senior season. He then completed his coursework for his Master's in Sports Administration from Northwestern University.
