Ohio State former head coach Bill Wadley spent 26 years at the helm of the Buckeyes men’s swimming team. Credit: Courtesy of OSU Athletics
From 1983-2017, many things changed about Ohio State’s men’s swimming program.
New students arrived and new facilities were built, yet there was one constant throughout that near 30-year timespan: head coach Bill Wadley.
Wadley coached the men’s swimming team for 28 years, leading them to a Big Ten Championship while winning Big Ten Coach of the Year in 2010, coaching 16 Olympians and boasting an overall record of 253-42.
On Sept. 8, Wadley passed away after his months-long bout with pancreatic cancer.
Although he retired from coaching at Ohio State in 2017, his impact on the program is still felt both in and out of the swimming pool.
Ohio State swimming coach Bill Dorenkott said Wadley’s main impact is seen through what past swimmers accomplished after swimming for his program.
“Coach [Wadley’s] legacy will be the amazing things that his former student-athletes went on to achieve after they stopped swimming and after they graduated from Ohio State,” Dorenkott said.
Prior to his arrival in Columbus, he spent two years as coach of the men’s swimming team at Michigan State. He also coached the women’s team in his final year with the program.
Dorenkott said a defining trait of Wadley’s coaching career at Ohio State was his passion for the school itself and the sport he coached.
“He absolutely loved Ohio State and loved the sport of swimming,” Dorenkott said. “Both of those things gave him so much in his life.”
Dorenkott added that Wadley was his mentor when he started coaching at Ashland University in the 1990s.
Dorenkott would sit in on Wadley’s trainings during his off days, and the two would get lunch and talk swimming for hours following the practices.
In 2007, while Dorenkott was a coach at Penn State, Wadley called to ask him if he wanted a job coaching Ohio State’s women’s swimming team.
While reluctant, Dorenkott said Wadley’s well-known persuasion won him over and he took the job.
“Anybody who knows, you know, coach Wadley knows he was a great salesman,” Dorenkott said. “So next thing you know, here I am at Ohio State.”
One of Wadley’s greatest achievements as coach was leading the Ohio State men’s swimming team to a Big Ten Championship in 2010.
The championship was his first as coach and Ohio State’s 13th conference victory all-time in men’s swimming.
Senior associate athletic director TJ Shelton said the championship was the peak of Wadley’s career and the coach’s lasting footprint on the university.
“The opportunity to win the conference championship in our own pool was a highlight probably of his time,” Shelton said.
Just as important to Wadley was his dedication to activities outside the swimming pool.
Shelton said that Wadley was instrumental in the construction of the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion in 2005, and this facility would be where Wadley led the Ohio State men’s swimming team to a Big Ten Championship five years later.
Wadley also founded Swim For Life Ohio, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching children, who may not have the ability to take lessons, how to swim.
“Every child should have the opportunity to learn how to swim for fun, exercise, and as a way to save their life,” Wadley said in a quote on the organization’s website. “We also want children to grow up without the fear of water and to have a healthy respect and understanding of the importance of safety around the water.”
To those who knew him, Wadley was generous with many things, but Dorenkott said he was especially unselfish when it came to both the school and sport he loved.
“It didn’t matter if it was teaching young kids, setting up a nonprofit, going and putting on a clinic somewhere, or recruiting or just talking on behalf of the university,” Dorenkott said. “He was very selfless in terms of his time, especially when it applied to either Ohio State and/or the sport of swimming.”
