Matt Rankin was announced as the new head coach of the Phoenix Swim Club today on their website after two weeks of speculation that he might be in line to replace Coley Stickels.
The club is one of the largest and most successful in the state of Arizona and has had a tumultuous few days; earlier this week, a letter was sent out to faculty that Brophy Prep, the school that owns the pool that Phoenix Swim Club’s uses, had sold the land the pool was on to a developer. That means that the club, while already having a new coach, will still be searching for a new training ground.
Brophy Prep is in the process of designing a pool that would be on its campus to house their State Championship squad, but it’s yet unclear if the Phoenix Swim Club will be a part of that new arrangement. The current facility won’t be closed until the new pool is opened.
Rankin comes to the club from the cross-town Westside Silver Fins, where he was previously the head coach. He has strong PSC ties though; he had previously coached with the Phoenix Swim Club in both a Masters and Age Group role. His brother, Mark Rankin, is currently the head Masters Coach at the Phoenix Swim Club as well, and his sister-in-law Maureen is an age group coach there.
Matt Rankin was named the 2008 Arizona Swimming Senior Coach of the Year. Among his more well-known trainees at the Westside YMCA is Cal All-American Tyler Messerschmidt, Virginia Freshman Chris Webb, and 14 year old stand out Amy Bilquist.
This move was not an uncontroversial one; the Phoenix Swim Club’s most famous trainee, Olympic gold medalist Roland Schoeman, voiced his displeasure in a letter to the Board of Directors last week in an email where he pointed out that Stickels helped him drop half-a-second in his 50 free.
Stickels first rose to fame at the Lake Oswego Swim Club, where he coached 7 National Age Group Record breakers and was named the ASCA National Age Group Coach of the Year in 2007. He was known for taking a very Dave-Salo-esque low-volume, high intensity approach to training at the club level.
Do tell swim swam
Although I (i.e., non-BOD) am active with our club, I did not know of the hiring process until it was a done deal. But will we be getting a repeat performance at Canyons Aquatics?
If you’re asking if the Canyons team is getting a selfish and verbally abusive coach, then ‘yes’ he hasn’t changed. He doesn’t care about the team as a whole or the individual swimmer; only has the swimmers make him look. It’s about scoring points to win meets and team records to make him look good. I hope all of the Canyons kids have a strong support system at home and that their parents have the strength to stand up to the coach when he goes into one of his rampages . Good luck!
I couldn’t disagree more. As a parent of a child who swam for Coley, I can tell you first hand that this guys cares about his swimmers more than anything. I’m certain 99% of all of the swimmers he has ever coached would attest to that.
Isn’t part of a coaches job to score points, win meets, and break records? A coach isn’t able to do those things without buy in from the swimmers themselves. Swimmers in this age will switch teams in a second if they don’t like a coach.
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Total disaster at PSC. The same board continues with the same nonsense. The actions of the parent run board are indefensible. Blame all the coaches that have gone through PSC all you want, but no one is buying it.
Good luck, Matt. You’ve sure got one big ugly mess on your hands!
Well if board run teams are the problem then Coach Stickels just went from the frying pan into the fire. Just hired at Canyons Aquatic Club (a board run team). What’s so illustrative of this guy, is the few Gold parents fought for two weeks to try and keep him. He let them fight his battles (once again) and knew full well and good he had another opportunity he was going to take anyway. Such a class individual.
Say what you want about board run programs, I really have no opinion as to whether they are better or worse. I can honestly say if there weren’t a board at PSC it would have closed years ago when Brophy dropped supporting… Read more »
Class Individual, Matt Rankin leaves Westide Silver Fins mid December, please don’t try to defend that. Is Matt Rankin’s BEST file in the same folder as Dave Gibson’s, funny how this topic seems to disappear on the site.
Did PSC post the position anywhere? I can’t find it.
And I assume this all happened in the last couple weeks.
A Coach resigns, a coach is found to replace him from across town.
Why do people continue to defend this behavior?
Read the 90 “comments” after the Swimming World online story and is can see why PSC is where it is today. Comments discussing the good times and the history. Others about incompetence of the Board and the Coach. A lack of ethics and honesty from staff and the Board. A staff not united, members not united. But, the right leaders would have fixed it. Many teams have pool closures, Head Coaches and boards butt heads everywhere at times. Coaches make mistakes in frustration everyday. Sometimes the team and Coach emerge better from these things. Will not happen when egos are the priority and dirty laundry gets aired outside of the inner circle. It shows how poorly PSC leadership has been.… Read more »
Cycled through 4 coaches in 18 months is a bit of a stretch. Dave Gibson was let go because of many reasons that were never told to the membership due to private personnel issues that could not be disclosed for legal reasons.
Brian Hoffer was always an interim coach from the get go. He had no desire to coach full time and only accepted the position knowing he would coach through the long course season to help with transition. He was also very instrumental in helping hire Coach Stickels.
Coach Stickels got kids swimming fast but showed zero desire in leading PSC as a whole. Usually a head coach is asked to coach his group and lead the rest of… Read more »
I guess that’s the blue print for a board run team. Keep cycling through coaches until you reunite Friends and family. Looks like a gamble that all coaches will have to take when accepting a position with a board run team. Regardless of your swimming background and coaching experience if board members don’t like your approach your stay will not be long. To bad this profession involves keeping your boxes ready for the next move.
Coach Gibson was “let go” and never told why. Membership not told. Coach Gibson not told either. No warning. No reasons.
Please continue to elaborate.
Make no mistakes about this, it was the Board that forced Coley to resign. It probably doesn’t look too good when this Board has cycled through 4 coaches in the past 18 months.