The University of Miami has hired Rio Ramirez as its new assistant men’s and women’s diving coach. He will work under Dario Di Fazio as the pair fill the void left by the legendary Randy Ableman, who retired over the summer after 35 years in charge of the program.
Ramirez dove under Ableman at Miami in the late 90s, winning three straight NCAA titles on 1-meter in 1997, 1998, and 1999. He also won the platform title in 1999 and was twice named the NCAA Diver of the Year.
He later competed for USA Diving, winning the national championship in synchronized 3-meter in 2000 and finishing third in the platform at the 2000 Olympic Trials. Ramirez graduated from UM in 2001 and was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame & Museum in 2014.
“We are excited to bring Rio back to Coral Gables,” Di Fazio said. “Rio is a terrific teacher and motivator who knows firsthand what this program can achieve at the highest levels of NCAA and international competition.”
Ramirez started his coaching career as the head coach at FIU, where the Panthers won five straight conference titles over seven seasons from 2012 through 2019. He was named conference Diving Coach of the Year five times with the women’s-only program.
In his final season at FIU, the program dominated the Conference USA Championships in diving. Panthers divers took the top four spots at the conference championship meet on 3-meter and the top three spots on 1-meter.
Ramirez spent one season as head coach at Alabama in 2019-2020, which included an SEC platform championship from diver Tanesha Lucoe. Alabama has had a ton of turnover in its diving coaching staff in the last decade, though Beau Bunn is entering his third season with the program.
After a year out of college diving, he took over the program at Virginia Tech. There, he helped four Hokies advance to the NCAA Championships over three seasons, including an honorable mention All-American on 1-meter and two bronze medals at ACCs.
Ramirez started this season as Virginia Tech’s diving coach, but the ACC diving coaching carousel has been unusually-active early during the season (Virginia’s diving coach, for example, also left mid-season for Notre Dame). The Hokies moved quickly to promote volunteer assistant Ryan Hawkins to their head diving coach role.
Miami has historically had one of the country’s best diving programs – to the extent that they continued the men’s diving program even after cutting the men’s swimming program.
The program had three representatives at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in diving: Mohamed Farouk of Egypt, Jake Passmore of Ireland, and Chiara Pellacani of Italy.
The 2024 USA Diving Winter Nationals begin on Saturday.
