Bill Diaz

Miami women's national championships

1975 AIAW Women's national championship With the help of seven swimming scholarships, the 1975 Miami Women's team included freestyle sprinting star Dawn Frady, butterfly and freestyle swimmer Sharon Berg, breaststroker J.B. Buchanon and 1972 Munich Olympic medley competitor Jenny Bartz. The team handily won the 1975 National Intercollegiate championship in Phoenix, Arizona with additional help from backstroker Pat Hines. Jenny Bartz was one of Miami's more outstanding competitors that year, and finished only a half second behind the first-place competitor in the 200-yard individual medley at the meet, receiving a time of 2:11.45. Bartz also swam on the winning 400m Medley relay team at the 1975 Gold Coast AAU Swimming Championships the week earlier at the university pool with the Miami Women's team finishing in a combined time of 4:40.82.

1976 AIAW Women's national championship Diaz's coaching was a likely factor in the success of the Women's team, as despite facing tough competition from a UCLA Women's team that had three former Olympians, including 1972 Olympic 800-meter freestyler Ann Simmons and 1972 Olympic 200-butterfly gold medalist Karen Moe, seven collegiate All-Americans, and world record holders, Diaz's Miami women won the Women's March 1976 AIAW National Championship in Fort Lauderdale with UCLA taking second, and Stanford third.

Diaz was a staff member or manager for five USA National swimming teams, that included the American team that took first at the 1982 World Aquatics Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador over rival East Germany and the Soviet Union. His butterfly swimmer Matt Gribble, and diver Greg Louganis both took medals in the competition.

Diaz died at his home in Palmetto Bay, Florida on September 18, 2014, at the age of 89.

Honors Diaz was inducted into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 2020, and the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame in 1995. In 2007, the University of Miami and Coral Gables honored Diaz by installing an electronic scoreboard at UM's Norman Whitten Student Union Pool, named in Diaz's honor.