Men's Swimming & Diving

Dave Pickford returns to Golden West after living and coaching in Clovis, California for the past
25 years. Pickford’s first connection to Golden West was in 1974 when he walked on the pool
deck and introduced himself to Tom Hermstad and became the first aquatic athlete to join the
Rustler program from HB’s Edison High. After playing polo and swimming for two seasons, he
moved onto Long Beach State in search of a history degree and a teaching credential. In the
fall of 1976, Topper Horack hired him at Marina to coach the boys’ varsity polo team and assist
with swimming. By 1980, Pickford was in charge of boys water polo and both swim programs for
the AquaVikes. The 1980’s were a good decade for Marina: six Sunset League boys’ polo titles,
a consistent spot in Orange County’s top ten polo programs, multiple league titles in both boys
and girls swimming and 16 All-American water polo players.

While teaching at Marina and coaching there as well, Pickford was also active in club swimming.
He was the Head Coach of the Huntington Beach Aquatic Club for six years, moved on to be
the Head Age Group Coach when the Golden West Swim Club was originally formed. A few
years later when Greg Holland moved on, Pickford became the Head Coach of GWSC but kept
coaching the age-groupers along with Siga Rose and Patti Haney. He relied heavily on John
Woodling to run the Senior program. They formed a good team and from 1986-1992, the
Golden West Swim Club became one of the top four swim clubs in Southern California.
In 1993, Tom Milich (Fresno State/Cal State San Luis Obispo) recruited Dave to take over the
fledgling program at Buchanan High School in Clovis. A 17 lane all deep pool and a chance to
purchase a new home for a rapidly growing family proved enough to lure Pickford north. He
continued to coach water polo there first as an assistant to Scott Schiller with the boys’ program
and then building the new girls’ program to appear in three CIF championship games. In 2005,
he took over the boys program and with the assistance of Nic Maes who became co-Head
Coach in 2011, Buchanan won nine CIF championships, the last four in a row from 2016-2019
culminating in a NorCal Regional title as well. Pickford headed up both the boys and girls’ swim
programs as well until Jennifer O’Meara ascended to the Head Girls’ Coach in 2013. Since
2006, the AquaBears have collected numerous CIF Championship runner-up spots while again
helping develop quite a few All-Americans in both sports.

In addition to the high school work, Pickford was involved with the Clovis Swim Club as the
Head Age Group Coach and helped the club become the dominant swim club in Central Cal. He
was named Central California Age Group Coach of the Year twice and was the CCS Zone Head
coach from 1997-2000. When An Baxter was hired to be a fulltime AGHC, Pickford moved to
run the Senior program at Buchanan for twelve years and then moved to become an assistant
with HC John McGough and the Elite program of CSC until the fall of 2020.

Dave lives in Newport Beach with his wife, Karen. His two sons, Brian and Garrett, both were
water polo champions and CIF finalists in swimming at Buchanan. Brian went on to play five
years of water polo at UC Irvine and Garrett was a member of both the polo and swim programs
at Golden West and then moved on to play two years of polo at Fresno Pacific University.