With more than 20 years of experience as a diving coach at the NCAA Division I and Junior Olympic levels, William “Billy” McGowan joined Colorado Mesa University’s Diving staff in 2021 and is now in his third year as the Mavericks’ diving coach.
In his first season with the Mavericks (2021-22), his divers swept the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference titles before earning a combined 12 All-America honors. Additionally, Isaiah Cheeks won the NCAA Division II title on the 3-meter springboard and was named as the NCAA Division II Men’s Diver of the Year by the CSCAA (College Swimming Coaches Association of America).
Cheeks and 2-event women’s all-American Jolynn Harris also swept the RMAC Diver of the Year honors while Harris and Ali Lange split RMAC Championship Women’s Diver of the Meet honors. Cheeks was also the men’s award winner.
The success continued in 2022-23 as the Mavericks again swept the RMAC diving titles and awards as Cheeks successfully defended his conference crowns en-route to repeat RMAC Championship Diver of the Meet and RMAC Men’s Diver of the Year awards. Meanwhile, Kyra Apodaca and then freshman Kenya Meyer both won titles to share RMAC Championship Women’s Diver of the Meet awards. Apodaca was later named as the RMAC Diver of the Year.
Additionally, Dawson Wilson was named as the RMAC Men’s Freshman of the Year for both swimming and diving as he earned two of the Mavs’ eight total all-America honors at the 2023 NCAA Division II Championships, a significant contributing factor to the Mavs’ overall swimming & diving team success. In 2023, the Maverick women placed fourth while the men were fifth at the NCAA Championships, their highest finishes in program history, which came after a fifth consecutive RMAC title sweep.
McGowan came to the Mavericks after serving in a similar role at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York, where he served for four years. He also served as the head coach for Purchase College’s High Dive Junior Olympic Team in Purchase, New York during that time.
Previous to his time in southern New York, McGowan founded and served as the head coach and program director for the Marlins Diving Club, a role he held for five years in Greenwich, Connecticut through the Greenwich YMCA. In that time, he grew his program to 130 divers and led the team to back-to-back regional championships (2009-2010) and a fifth place team finish at the 2009 USA Diving Nationals and a 2009 YMCA national team championship while coaching 2009 spring 1-meter national champion Carolina Sculti, who went on to compete at the Pan American Games.
McGowan also served as the Head Diving Coach at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York for two years after similar positions at the Big Ten Conference’s University of Illinois and Stony Brook University. At Illinois, he guided divers to the NCAA Zone Championships after coaching Stony Brook’s first two NCAA Zone qualifiers as well as three ECAC Championships qualifiers.
While at Stony Brook, McGowan earned his master’s degree in physical education, completing that in 2003. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in visual arts/photography from Purchase College since 1997.
He is still active in the photography field specializing in landscapes and urban landscapes and regularly displays his work at art shows.
McGowan is also an adjunct profession for the CMU kinesiology department and is teaching football, indoor volleyball and beach volleyball courses this semester.
McGowan is also an avid hiker and cyclist and is excited to be in Western Colorado, where those opportunities are prevalent.
