Minnesota To Add Denver’s Hicken-Franklin As Associate Head Coach

The Minnesota Golden Gophers will be adding Denver’s Alicia Hicken-Franklin to its coaching staff as associate head coach, replacing the departed Ryan Purdy.

Hicken-Franklin is a Gopher alumnus from the mid-1990s, competing for the legendary head coach Jean FreemanHicken-Franklin spent a brief time coaching at Washington State before settling in Denver for 17 years. She was an associate head coach with the Pioneers and will jump into that same role with the Golden Gophers.

A distance swimmer herself, Hicken-Franklin has had a solid run of success with Denver’s distance swimmers. It appears she’ll slide into that role with the Gophers, who have recently gotten big production out of a distance crew that includes All-American Brooke Zeiger.

Hicken-Franklin also has an international connection with Minnesota. As a swimmer, she represented Canada individually, making finals at Canadian Nationals and Canadian Olympic Trials. Minnesota’s close proximity to Canada has developed a nice recruiting pipeline that’s recently included breaststroker Kierra Smith and open water swimmer Breanne Siwickiboth of whom will compete for Canada at World Championships later this month.

Hicken-Franklin will take over for Purdy, who is the new head coach at Youngstown State. The rest of Minnesota’s coaching roster remains intact from last season: Kelly Kremer is the head coach along with senior associate head coach Terry Ganley, associate head coach Gideon Louw, assistant coach Tyler Gerst and diving coach Wenbo Chen.

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Jim Bain - former retired coach for 32 yrs. U. of
7 years ago

My hat (swim cap) off to Alicia. Outstanding hire for U. of M. You U. of M. swimmers be ready for hard, fun workouts with Alicia. She has so much class I guarantee you will love her – everyone does including me.

Susan
7 years ago

We alums are thrilled to have Alicia! Congratulations to her and MN!

Kristin Hill
7 years ago

Amazing hire – congratulations, Alicia!

Boola!
7 years ago

Incredible opportunity for an amazing coach and person!!!!

korn
7 years ago

great hire for Minnesota…big loss for Denver

Steve Thompson
7 years ago

One of the most underrated coaches with a proven record of developing swimmers to an elite level. Perfect fit and a great hire for the Gophers. Welcome home. Congratulations!

Steve Thompson
7 years ago

One of the most underrated coaches with a proven record of developing swimmers to an elite level. Perfect fit and great hire for the Gophers. Welcome home. Congratulations!

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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