The University of Tennessee has promoted Rich Murphy to the position of associate head coach.
While we have seen college swimming programs assigning more-and-more of these “associate head coach titles,” (it’s usually a money thing), this position at the University of Tennessee is particularly significant because of the structure of the program.
While Matt Kredich is the overall program head coach and retains that title for both genders, the program is structured in such a way where he focuses most of his effort and attention on the women’s team, while this associate head coach position focuses primarily on the men’s team.
As the release announcing the move put it, “he will be in charge of the men’s team’s athletic and cultural development.”
While it’s not unusual to have combined-gender teams where certain coaches focus slightly on athletes of a certain gender, maybe in a recruiting coordinator position, Tennessee’s delineation of duties is more overt than most.
Previously at Tennessee, Murphy worked on deck primarily with swimmers training 200 yards or longer, including open water.
The 2021-2022 season will be Murphy’s 5th with the program. He had previous collegiate stops as the head women’s coach at the University of Houston (2013-2014), as an assistant at Auburn when they won men’s and women’s national championships in the 2006-2007 season, as an assistant at Bowling Green from 2005-2006, and as a volunteer and graduate assistant at Arizona State from 2001-2003.
His coaching reputation really bloomed between the Auburn and Houston positions with the Dynamo Swim Club in Atlanta. There, he coached several athletes who went on to become Olympians, including Jay Litherland, Matias Koski, and Andrew Rutherford.
He also spent a year as a volunteer at Club Wolverine during the brief Bob Bowman/Jon Urbanchek/Michael Phelps era from 2005-2006, spent 2 years as the head coach at Sun Devil Aquatics, and was an age group coach at PASA and Los Altos Mountain View Aquatic Club.
Murphy is a current member of the USA Swimming National Team staff as the home coach of National Team member Taylor Abbott. Abbott won a silver medal in the open water race at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. He has also coached David Heron and Joey Tepper on to the current USA Swimming National Team roster.
The Tennessee men finished 3rd out of 10 teams at last year’s SEC Championship meet. That matched 2019 as the team’s best finish of the last 10 SEC Championship meets. The previous coach in that role, Lance Asti, resigned at the end of last season to pursue a career outside of swimming.
Not sure this structure is working for them. Seems like they’ve just taken someone who was involved with the grossly underperforming men’s team, and put him in charge. Rich has no doubt, produced some good swimmers in the past but that hasn’t translated to his collegiate work (see the disaster at Houston). The vol’s can’t seem to attract top tier talent on the men’s side. Kredich seems to have no idea (or maybe care) what happens to the men, and the joke hiring of Rob only validates this. The Vols has a huge opportunity to revamp and reset, but chose to do it the same way as before…
The men’s team has been 3rd in the SEC in 2 of the last 3 seasons. Which is higher than they’ve been at any point in the last decade.
I don’t know if we have same definition of “grossly underperforming.”
Agreed that 3rd in the SEC isn’t horrible. However 20th at NCAAs last year is hardly something we Vols want to brag about or have much pride in. Losing to Miami’s dive team, in my book, is underperforming. And even 3rd in the conference is not quite the standard that UT wants to hold itself to…
I get it. Every team that’s ever won a title wants their expectation to be titles from that point forward.
But to me, “Grossly underperforming” is a very different thing than “holding ourselves to a high standard based on program history.”
While diving is a part of “swimming and diving”. the VOLS at both SECs and NCAAs have been bolstered excessively over the recent years by diving. If one looks closely at the performance of the “swimmers” at SECs and NCAAs the picture has been bleak. Additionally the success of the ladyVOLS during the same period, while awesome, begs the question what is going on with the men’s program? Coach Murphy
Lots of poor decisions in the SEC this year. UT currently and the choice Alabama made wow what is going on?
Our question for years has been how much “man“ is really in the ManVols?
Me thinks a bit of a pep talk from one of the early ManVols such as Melvin Stewart would help these little boys
Congratulations to you Coach Murphy and best wishes. Here is to hoping you can turn the Men’s team, which has not been relevant for almost 20 years, into a highly respected, feared and excellent team. For Tennessee to be happy with an occasional 3rd place SEC meet finish and only have one or two individual scorers at NCAAs is below expectations. Long gone are the days when the coonskin cap was worn by men who accepted team trophies at NCAAs for 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th place finish….bring back the glory! Go VOLS!!!!
The coonskin cap was ridiculous the first time I saw it in the Bussard era and is currently matched only by IU’s cartoonish striped warmup pants.
Check the history of the coonskin cap which was worn by many frontiersman who helped craft our country. Also worn by many native Americans for protection against elements and insects. Is you a steer or?
That’s a heck of a resume – but also makes you realize how much swim coaches move around pursuing their careers
Rich a Rula!!!!!!!!