On Saturday, Jim Nickell was appointed as the new head coach and executive director of Bend Swim Club in Bend, Oregon. He replaces interim head coach (and former age group coach) Heather Thomas, who was put in her position after Megan Oesting resigned as head coach this January.
“I am thrilled to be joining Bend Swim Club,” Nickell said. “The 60 year history of Bend Swim Club provides a strong foundation upon which we can build one of the most complete swim programs in the country. The talent and facilities in Bend, combined with tremendous family support, create an exciting future in the pool. I am also very eager to join Oregon
Swimming that has some of this country’s best coaches and talented teams.”
Nickell comes from Tennessee Aquatics, where he served as a senior coach and meet director since the summer of 2022. Prior to his time in Knoxville, he had stints as the head coach of Mesa Aquatics in Mesa, Arizona and Loveland Swim Club in Loveland, Colorado. He has also been named Coach of the Year for Arizona Swimming, New Mexico Swimming, and Colorado swimming.
In addition, Nickell’s son Alex and daughter Grace both swim in college, competing for Navy and Air Force, respectively.
Bend Swim Club was headed by Oesting from 2021 up until early 2024, when she resigned to become the technical director of the Malaysian Swimming Federation (MAF). She said that she left Bend because she “could no longer serve the organization under its current leadership.” Oesting’s son Diggory Dillingham swam with Bend during her stint there, but he is now a freshman at USC after taking an Olympic redshirt season last year.
Other notable swimmers at Bend include USC commit and 2024 Junior Pan Pacs silver medalist Campbell McKean, the No. 14 recruit in SwimSwam’s class of 2025 rankings.
Why is this Jim’s 4th team in 5 years?
Great question. Here’s the upcoming mentality: “winning is everything, at whatever the cost” the focus will be on producing olympians in short order, nothing less. If you aren’t the best, you aren’t worth this guy’s time. Hopeful he changed but doubtful he did
Congrats Jim! Welcome to Oregon.
Great hire! Nothing but good things to say about Jim. He builds good team culture, produces fast swimmers, and is an all around wonderful man. These kids (and Parents) are lucky to have him.
My fondest memories In life are from being coached by Jim & swimming with the Scottsdale crew! We had fun AND swam fast.
Wow! These comments are lookin’ pretty nasty!
Seems like she does not like to work with a BOD; based on her previous stops and same old same old.
Hopefully “International” swimming suites her better…..otherwise she might want to look at herself in the mirror and ask what she can do better too.
Welcome to Bend Coach. I look forward to learning about you and your vision for the club. What has impressed me over my years here is that the current staff does a great job collaborating for the greater good of the club. Hopefully collaboration is part of your vision for the club. Potential inaccuracies I noticed in the article is that it listed Coach as a HC for the Junior team in 2006, and the titles from the Nashville club. Maybe, and I hope, they are simply a misunderstanding, miscommunication, or my poor googling, which shows different information.
Tennessee Aquatics is in Knoxville, not Nashville. Perhaps that is part of your confusion?
‘Spouse’ – you sound like trouble. “Collaborating for the greater good of the club?” Whose idea of greater good is often a significant source of discord on Parent Run Board clubs.
Jim is skilled and has the best interest of youth at heart, both in terms of swimming skills and personal development. His own two kids graduated from military academies, with his son qualifying for Olympic Trials in that process.
You can trust him with your kids, on every level.
Can trust him to overwork them. Those not 1000% vested in becoming olympians like his son, will soon lose passion and heart for the sport
So basically BEND just hired someone with the same amount of baggage as their previous coaches? This board has zero idea what they’re doing, clearly were desperate, and just pulled the trigger without due diligence. Should have never gotten rid of Mark to begin with. All the complaints you had with Mark, you’re going to have x100 with Jim. Good luck!
There were better candidates recommended for this position, but the staffing firm they hired chose to ignore them.
They burned through some other pretty good candidates.
Can’t speak to who was hired, but I do question what qualifies the hiring agencies?
Simple. They line up all candidates, sit them on a stool one by one, and put a sorting hat on their heads 🙂
Some of those candidates passed due to the board.
Jim has had success at EVERY program he’s lead. Every single one.
What type of complaints (x100) do you foresee cropping up?
I’m up for a fact check! Please use AI or some other tool and tell me which PROGRAM that Jim has led that WASN’T successful.
With all these downvotes, I should get plenty of concrete examples!!!
I’ll wait…
If success was the criteria Mark B would still be there.
The bend swim club bod will make that way just wait
I’m sorry, but this is just flat out not true. He talks a big game, but delivered next to nothing in Mesa other than changing some group names and supervising the warm down pool during meets, while missing all but his favorite swimmers races. Maybe things have been different elsewhere, and I hope it works out in Bend, but from what I’ve seen, the dude is not all he’s cracked up to be.
I don’t know his history, still learning. Because this hire took around 6 to 7 months to complete, your assumption around desperation has merit. We will see.
Congratulations Jim!