The Miami Hurricanes swimming & diving program has been a force in national and international waters for longer than a half-century. Swimmer Dick Fetterman earned the first All-America honors for the program in 1949, and Jack Nelson became the second to do so in 1958. But it was under the direction of Bill Diaz, widely credited with establishing Miami Hurricanes swimming and diving as one of the nation’s elite programs, when Miami truly burst onto the scene as an emerging power.
Diaz coached the Hurricanes swimming and diving teams for fourteen years (1971 – 1984). During that time, his squads posted four top-10 NCAA Championship finishes and finished in the top-20 at the NCAA Championships eleven times.
University of Miami women’s swimming & diving took home back-to-back national championships (1975, 1976) under his watch while his men’s team managed to capture a national championship three times (1974, 1977, 1982).
Diaz’s 1975 women’s swimming and diving squads won six individual national titles – the most the University has ever won in a single year.
The Canes have had two swimmers advance to each of the past two NCAA Championships under the direction of current head coach Andy Kershaw.
The final year of the Hurricanes’ men’s swimming program came in 1999-2000, but the men’s diving program continued to reach unprecedented heights under diving coach Randy Ableman, who retired in 2024 after 35 years as head coach. Ableman coached 14 divers to 26 individual national championships, coached 160 All-America performances, was named CSCAA Diving Coach of the Year nine times, won ACC Men’s Diving Coach of the Year six times, and earned ACC Women’s Diving Coach of the Year four times. His longtime assistant Dario di Fazio took over the head coaching reins in 2024.
On the international scene, the Miami Hurricanes swimming & diving program has had at least one representative in the last 11 Olympic Games dating back to 1984, including a silver medal-winning performance from former NCAA national champion diver Sam Dorman at the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
Miami has totaled 39 Olympians as a program: five women’s swimmers, 11 men’s divers, 11 women’s divers and 12 men’s swimmers. The first Olympian was Gaither Rosser, who represented the United States in 1952.
