{"id":647263,"date":"2026-07-24T17:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T00:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=647263"},"modified":"2026-07-24T17:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T00:27:17","slug":"penn-state-hires-samantha-pickens-as-head-diving-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/penn-state-hires-samantha-pickens-as-head-diving-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn State Hires Samantha Pickens as Head Diving Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Penn State Hires Samantha Pickens as Head Diving Coach<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Penn State <a href=\"https:\/\/gopsusports.com\/news\/2026\/07\/24\/swimming-and-diving-welcomes-pickens-as-head-diving-coach\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on Thursday announced<\/a> the hiring of <strong>Samantha Pickens<\/strong> as the school\u2019s head diving coach.<\/p>\n<p>She joins the staff of <strong>Hollie Bonewit-Cron<\/strong> after two seasons as the head diving coach at Liberty. Pickens was named the Atlantic Sun Women\u2019s Diving Coach of the Year in 2024-25.<\/p>\n<p>Pickens returns to her home state after a standout career at the University of Arizona and as a USA Diving national champion.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/meet\/big-ten-swimming\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Big Ten Swimming News<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Pickens was a standout at Franklin Regional High School in the greater Pittsburgh area. She graduated from Arizona as a five-time All-American in 2014, having won NCAA championships on 1-meter in 2013 and 2015 and a Pac-12 1-meter title in 2015. She earned the University of Arizona Ruby Award for athletic and academic achievement as a senior and was among 32 swimmers and divers named to the Pac-12 All-Century team in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>As a diver, she won USA diving titles on 1-meter in 2013 and 2015 and 3-meter synchro gold in 2013. She competed at four U.S. Olympic trials from 2016-24, earning 3-meter synchro bronze in the last two. Her competitive experience includes a number of international meets, including the 2013 and 2015 World Championships, finishing seventh on 3-meter synchro in the former. She also competed at the World University Games twice.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, Pickens teamed with <strong>Sarah Bacon<\/strong> to help the U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/sarah-bacon-samantha-pickens-claim-olympic-quota-spots-in-womens-in-3-meter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">capture its Olympic quota spot for the Tokyo Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>During her career, Pickens was a USA Diving athlete representative from 2011-13. She was the head coach of Team Puerto Rico in 2017 for two World Series events. She returned to her alma mater in 2017-18 as its interim diving head coach. From 2018-24, she was an assistant diving coach for the city of Midland, Texas, mentoring multiple USA Diving event qualifiers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Penn State Hires Samantha Pickens as Head Diving Coach Penn State on Thursday announced the hiring of Samantha Pickens as the school\u2019s head diving coach. She joins the staff of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8367,"featured_media":647264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[62493,137026,24919,21703,27489],"class_list":["post-647263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college","category-diving","tag-big-ten-swimming","tag-big-ten-swimming-news","tag-diving-2","tag-penn-state","tag-samantha-pickens"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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