Women's Swimming & Diving
- Title:
- Associate Head Coach
Rick Bishop concluded his eighth year as associate head coach, primarily working with the women's swimming and diving team. In his tenure, Bishop has been instrumental in helping restore the women's program to a national powerhouse with three consecutive Big Ten championships from 2016-18 and back-to-back top-four team finishes at the NCAA Championships in 2018 (fourth) and 2019 (third).
With Bishop's guidance, the women's program jumped from 26 spots at the NCAA Championships in three years (36th in 2013 to 10th in 2016), peaking with a third-place finish in 2019, the second-best finish in program history. The Wolverines engineered a three-peat at the Big Ten Championships from 2016-18, a streak that hadn't been achieved since the late 1990s. They were dominant in 2018, winning by 235.5 points, the largest margin of victory by any Big Ten team in seven years. Bishop's swimmers also have completely re-written the record board, as all 19 school records (in short course yards) have been broken, including 15 since 2018. In 2020, Bishop coached Maggie MacNeil to Big Ten Women's Swimmer of the Year honors, the first Wolverine to win the award in 12 years.
Bishop served as an assistant coach for USA Swimming at the 2016 FINA Swimming World Championships (25m) in Canada and at the 2017 World University Games in Taiwan. Several swimmers under his guidance have represented their countries internationally, including Maggie MacNeil (2019 FINA World Championships gold medalist in the 100-meter butterfly); sisters Gabby DeLoof (2018 Pan Pacific Championships), Ali DeLoof (2016 FINA World Championships) and Catie DeLoof (2019 World University Games); Hong Kong's Siobhán Haughey (2016 Olympics), Claudia Lau (2016 Olympics) and Jamie Yeung (2017 World University Games); Clara Smiddy and G Ryan (2015 Pan American Games); Sierra Schmidt (2019 World University Games); Canada's Marni Oldershaw (2013 World University Games) and Singapore's Samantha Yeo (2015 FINA World Championships).Â
Prior to coming to Michigan, Bishop spent the last four years with USA Swimming. Bishop's role with USA Swimming had expanded every year since his arrival in Colorado Springs in 2008, including serving as a sport performance consultant for the Club Development arm of USA Swimming for two years before moving on to the national team in 2010. There, Bishop was performance support manager for one year (2010-11), managing the national team performance staff at the 2010 Short Course World Championships in Dubai. Most recently, Bishop was Manager of Coach Services and Education (2011-2012), where he was responsible for choosing the 2013 World University Games team.
Over his 20-plus years as coach, Bishop has garnered significant international experience. He spent two years on the Brazilian National Team coaching staff, first serving as an assistant coach at the 1995 World Championships in Rio de Janeiro and 1995 Pan-American Games in Mar del Plata, Argentina, before heading up the Brazilian Olympic Team at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. He also served as an assistant coach for Jamaica at the 1998 Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, and was the head coach for the Netherlands Antilles at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia.
Bishop began his coaching career by serving a three-year stint as an assistant men's swimming coach at Harvard (1988-91) before moving to the University of Memphis Tiger Swimming (MTS) Club (1992-96), where he coached six swimmers to the Top 50 of the world rankings between 1994 and 1995.
In 1998, Bishop moved to Jacksonville, Fla., where he began a four-year stint as an assistant coach for The Bolles School, a private college preparatory day and boarding school. He assisted with high school national championship and state championship teams, coached high school All-Americans and U.S. Nationals finalists, and was co-Director of The Bolles School Summer Swim Camps. He went on to serve as head coach and aquatics director at the Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tenn., beginning in 2002, and also served as program director for the Baylor Swim Club, the school's club team. In 2004, Bishop guided Baylor to a first-place finish (combined team) at the Tennessee State High School Championships, and coached 20 men's and women's All-Americans from 2003-04.
Bishop returned to The Bolles School in 2006 as head coach of the high school team and aquatics director of the club team, the Bolles Sharks. In his first year, both his boys and girls teams won the Florida High School 1A State Championship. The next year, in 2007, Bishop guided Bolles to a second-place finish at the 2007 USA Swimming Spring Championships (combined team), with Bishop guiding four Olympic Trials qualifiers and five swimmers ranked in the Top 105 in the world rankings.
Bishop attended the University of Massachusetts (1988), receiving his B.S. in exercise science, with a concentration in exercise physiology. At UMass, Bishop was team captain on the first team championship in the program's history (1987).
Bishop and his wife, Pamela, have three sons - Liam, Aidan, and Kilian
