Swimming & Diving
- Title:
- Senior Associate Head Coach
- Email:
- harveyh@sports.uga.edu
Harvey Humphries, who served for 38 years on the Georgia coaching staff, enters his second season as the team's program coordinator. Including his four years as a letterman and two as a graduate assistant, he has been involved with Georgia swimming and diving for 45 years.
Humphries began his new role with the program following his retirement from the coaching staff in July 2019. For the final seven years of his tenure, he served as Senior Associate Head Coach.
Humphries was involved in all facets, including concentration with the distance swimmers and heavy involvement in recruiting. Humphries was a nominee for the 2002 AFLAC National Assistant Coach of the Year Award. In 2016, he earned the Established Assistant Coach of the Year from CollegeSwimming.com.
Under Humphries since 1989, Georgia boasted 22 NCAA and 57 SEC titles in the 500 and 1,650 freestyle and the 400 individual medley.
On the international stage, the three-time Georgia Senior Coach of the Year – which is named by U.S. Swimming – has also been appointed to the World University Games staff on multiple occasions: Thailand (2007), China (2011) and South Korea (2015).
Apart from collegiate coaching, the Little Rock, Ark., native has served as a coach for U.S. Swimming (USS) select camps and Zone District camps and is currently on the international trip list as a Level 5 coach for the NCAA and USS. In the spring of 1997, Humphries was assistant women’s coach of the U.S. National Junior Team in Sweden and served as head men’s coach for the U.S. National Junior Team’s fall training camp in Colorado.
Locally, Humphries serves as head coach of the Athens Bulldog Swim Club (ABSC) which has developed some of the top talent in the Southeast. Humphries has served as senior chairman for age-group swimming in Georgia and was the first recipient of the Schluetter Award, given to top national age-group coaches.
Spending his “off time” working for U.S. Swimming, Humphries was the head coach of the National Team Distance Camp in July of 1998 after serving as an assistant coach at the camp in 1995. Humphries also served as an assistant coach for the victorious South squad in the 1994 U.S. Olympic Festival. Humphries has given his time to the Paralympic Games, working as a volunteer along with members of ABSC during the 1996 Games in Atlanta.
Humphries’ international travels took him to Spain as an assistant coach of the National Junior Team in 1999 and he served as the head men’s coach for the 2002 National Junior Team that competed in Italy.
He was inducted into the Arkansas Swimming Hall of Fame in 2003.
Humphries graduated from Georgia in 1980 with a bachelor’s in microbiology. He and his wife Wendy have a son Billy and a daughter Pirie.
