Rick Hancock Named Head Coach at Santa Barbara Swim Club

The Santa Barbara Swim Club Board of Directors has announced the hiring of Rick Hancock as the club’s new head coach. He will start the job in early March.

Hancock most recently was associate head coach at Memphis Tiger Swimming in Tennessee, where he was primarily responsible for coaching the senior level swimmers, oversaw a staff of eight, and helped manage the team for new growth and development.

Before that, he was the head age group coach of the Memphis Thunder Aquatic Club (MTAC) for almost six years. During his time at MTAC, Hancock helped double the size of the program and developed and coached numerous successful swimmers including:

Multiple top 16 National Age Group ranked swimmers, and a number one finisher; SES (Southeastern Swimming) champions, Southern Zone champions, NCSA Juniors and USA Swimming Futures qualifiers. In 2015-16, the 11-12 and 13-14 year-old boys were the SES Team Champions.

Hancock helped MTAC gain three top 200 finishes in the Virtual Club Championship and achieve two bronze medals with USA Swimming. He previously was the founder, head coach and aquatics director of LTP Racing Club in South Carolina.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the SBSC and Southern California Swimming families, both have such a rich history of storied success,” Hancock said. “I’m humbled, too, for the opportunity to be part of these swimming communities, and I’m looking forward to getting started on new beginnings.”

Hancock was a successful collegiate swimmer at the University of Virginia, where in his freshman year he helped UVA capture its sixth straight ACC title. He was a two-time ACC team champion, ACC bronze medalist in the 100 breaststroke, two-time Academic All American, six-time MVP Award and four-time Leadership Award winner.

He grew up in South Carolina where his father owned a recreation pool. Being around the pool it was natural that Hancock and his older sisters became successful swimmers. Both of his sisters swam in college (Georgia Tech and Duke) and one went on to coach at Auburn.

— Amy Fritz for Santa Barbara Swim Club.