Local Award-Winning Swim Coach Honored on School’s ‘Wall of Fame’

Longtime Malibu resident, Pepperdine University head swim coach, and a noted photographer in his spare time, Nick Rodionoff was recently included among the ranks of those honored on the Birmingham High School Wall of Fame.
Rodionoff taught at Birmingham for many years and coached the school teams to an impressive number of swim awards. In 1999, the school named its new pool the Nick Rodionoff Pool.
During his years of coaching high school, Rodionoff’s swimmers won 10 Los Angeles City swimming championships ad had a dual meet record of 324-3, winning 99 percent of their competitions. Rodionoff’s swimmers won 36 league championships and included over 36 high school All Americans in their ranks.
Rodionoff has been coaching at Pepperdine for the past 36 years, the last 10 of which he was the head swim coach and diving coach. His career at the school will end because of the university’s decision to terminate its women’s swim program.
Rodionoff has created a legacy of accomplishments in coaching that has earned him numerous accolades. In 2002 and 2009, he was named the Pacific Collegiate Swimming and Diving Conference (PCSC) coach of the year. He coached the PCSC diver and swimmer of the year in 2002, 2008 and 2009.
Rodionoff won the Fred A. Cady Memorial Coaches Diving Award, which is presented to coaches who have dedicated 25 or more years to diving and have developed outstanding talent in the U.S. National Diving Program and international competitions, including the Olympic Games. Rodionoff was also a candidate for Olympic diving coach.
On the national level, he was the only coach in the United States to have coached national champions in swimming and diving. He coached a finalist is 12 straight national diving championships; and he coached swimmers in 38 national age group records.
The longtime Malibuite also coached the women’s relay team to the short course national 200 meter freestyle record; he was named to the U.S. Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame in Florida and inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame—the fifth coach from California to be named.
Rodionoff coached the UCLA diving team from 1964 through 1974. He then moved to Pepperdine University in 1974 to coach men’s diving. During his 35-year tenure at the school, the team won 11 conference championships.
Rodionoff started the women’s program in 1987, and until 1991, the women divers were undefeated and six women divers have won the conference and qualified for the NCAA.
He became head coach in 2000 and during this time, he said Pepperdine’s swimmers have broken 11 school records out of 20 possible; and made records over 75 times—out of 100 possible—that are the Pepperdine women’s swimming all-time best times.
Rodionoff and the swimmers expressed disappointment when the school announced this year that it was cutting the women’s program because of the difficult financial environment, but they won a reprieve to finish the season.