Deryk Snelling

Deryk Sydney Snelling (22 July 1933 – 4 September 2021) was a British-born swimming coach for both Britain and Canada best known for leading the University of Calgary swimming team to nine national and 11 Canadian West Conference Championships from 1980 to 1996. He served as a Coach to the Canadian Olympic team in seven Olympics from 1972 to 1996, and has been recognized as one of the most honored swim coaches in recent history by the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, BC Sports Hall of Fame, and both the Canadian and International Swimming Halls of Fame. Snelling mentored fifty-seven of his swimmers to berths on Olympic teams, with Olympic medals earned by twenty-one. In non-Olympic international competition, swimmers coached by Snelling amassed ten World Championship medals, thirty-eight medals in the Pan American games, twenty-seven medals in the Pan Pacific Games, and sixty-five medals in the British Commonwealth Games. For his contributions to Canadian swimming on both the club, university, and Olympic level, many sports historians consider him Canada's greatest contemporary swim coach. His father owned grocery stores, and a number of other businesses where Snelling occasionally worked growing up. He swam for his school team, and became known in the 1950s as a British national swimmer and English swimming champion. By 1951, he held the British 200-yard National breaststroke title and a national butterfly title. He instead served from 1952 to 1954 in the British army with the Lancashire Fusiliers, where he became a boxing champion, and served as an instructor of Physical Training. While at Southampton, he first coached David Haller.

Canadian Dolphin Swim Club Leaving England for Canada in 1967, he took over Vancouver's Canadian Dolphin Swim club from Hall of Fame Coach Howard Firby. Snelling served as Head Coach through 1975. Firby had founded the club in 1955 with William H. Stewart, the father of Canadian Olympic medalists Helen Stewart Hunt and Mary Stewart, one of the seven original members. A dominant program between 1956 and 1967, Firby's Vancouver Canadian Dolphin team won six Canadian National team titles, with the exception of the year 1965. Deryk with Snelling on his Dolphin Swim Club between 1973 and 1977 won 65 of the 130 titles available in Canadian national competition.

University of Calgary While coaching the Etobicoke Club in 1979–80, Snelling was tasked with helping to find a University of Calgary Head swim coach by the university's Dean of Physical Education, Roger Jackson, a gold medalist in Olympic rowing. Discouraged by his inability to find a suitable Head Coach, Dean Jackson asked Snelling to consider the position himself, and Snelling eventually accepted realizing the importance of collegiate swimming. The university was able to offer scholarships at the time, but was looking to grow its facilities and make its swim program more competitive in order to keep more Canadian swimmers from accepting scholarships at American Universities. While at the university, Snelling also served as an assistant professor on the physical education faculty in beginning in the Fall of 1980. Snelling counted on Graham Smith, winner of six gold medals at the 1978 Commonwealth Games, as one of his first outstanding recruits on the team. Though Smith, like many top Canadian prospects initially swam for an American school, the University of California Berkeley, he would finish his collegiate career with Snelling's University of Calgary team, and help lead them to six national titles. Snelling was able to recruit other former Calgary area swimmers including Lisa Dixon, Gabrielle Sponheimer, and Maureen Sheehan, as well as Mike Olson, who Snelling had just coached at Etobicoke.

Snelling coached at the University of Calgary from 1980 to 1996, where he led the Men's team to win nine National titles and 11 Canada West Conference titles. He coached the Dinos women's team to three Conference championships. He coached Britain's national swim team from 1996 to 2000 serving as Technical Director. He was replaced by Australian Coach Bill Sweetenham in November 2000, when the British swimming team failed to win medals in 2000. After a short retirement after 2000, he served as the Coordinator for Canadian National Team Development. After retiring, he served as the National Performance Director for the British swimming program and in the 2000 Olympic Games served as the country's head coach. Like many highly recognized coached, Snelling supported a number of his swimmers to become coaches, including David Haller, who was a British Olympic and British Coach of the Year. Snelling was a Canadian Swim-Coach-of-the-Year in three years, 1978, 1988, and 1992. While coaching at U. of Calgary, he was a Canadian Interscholastic Athletic Union (CIAU) Coach of the Year seven times from 1982 to 1988. In 1990, he was awarded the Coaching Canada Award by 3M, and in 2005 was honored as one among 100 other nominated sportsmen candidates to be awarded the Alberta Centennial Salute for Sport and Recreation. He was made an Inaugural member of the Canadian Swim Coaches and Teachers Association Hall of Fame in 2014.

Deryk died of diagnosed heart failure on September 4, 2021, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, having been predeceased by his wife Laura on March 5, 2020. He was buried next to Laura at Yates Cemetery in Parksville in the Nanaimo Regional District, in British Columbia.