McMurry University made a splash with a new head coaching hire on August 16, 2021 as former Vice President for Student Affairs and Intercollegiate Athletics Sam Ferguson announced veteran coach Arthur Wang to lead the men’s and women’s swimming programs.
Wang brings over three decades of coaching experience to Abilene, including the last two years as the head lead coach for Waterloo Swim Club in Austin, Texas. Prior to Austin, Wang was the head swimming coach at NCAA Division III member SUNY Fredonia from 2003-2019.
His second year saw the War Hawks men's and women's squads each surpass the 200-point mark at the always-tough SCAC meet where they put nine events on the podium which served as a new single-season best. In his first slate at McMurry, the War Hawks had record-breaking performances from Caleb Bush (100 breast) and Kristina Sullivan (400 individual medley) at the SCAC Championships and celebrated a podium finish by Noah Biggs. Eleven swimmers also earned SCAC Academic Honor Roll and the men's team earned Scholar All-America honors.
At Fredonia, Wang led a program that had 13 individual D3 All-Americans and 22 conference champions. He also coached the Blue Devils’ first-ever national champion, diver Kelly Sponholz, during the 2008-09 season. He also serves as the head counselor for the Longhorns Swim Camp at The University of Texas at Austin and has been with the camp since 2004. At Texas, he works closely with several Olympic swimmers and head U.S. Men’s Olympic coach Eddie Reese. Outside of Reese, Wang also worked alongside US. Olympic head coaches Richard Quick and Skip Kenney at the Stanford National Swim Camp for eight summers. He also spent one season as the head swim coach at Ithaca YMCA in 1996-97.
A native of Ithaca, N.Y., Wang began his coaching career as an assistant at Ithaca College. He has since made stops at Cornell University, Pomona-Pitzer Colleges as interim head coach and Washington University. At Washington in 2003, he was named the AFLAC National Assistant of the Year. Wang graduated from Ithaca College in 1994 with a degree in exercise science and later completed the teacher certification program at SUNY Cortland in 1998.
He addition to his coaching skills, he is a lifeguard training instructor and is certified in Coaching Safely, CPR/First Aid and AED. He is also fluent in the German language and semi-fluent in Chinese and French.
Wang resides in Abilene and has already built a strong friendship with Coach Bev Ball and Coach Barbara Brock.
