West Liberty University faculty member Rick West was selected as a Fellow of the American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) this week. The class includes representatives from all over the country. The World Clinic will be held in Cleveland, Ohio this fall.

Also the director of graduate education for WLU’s College of Education, West has worked on the Hilltop since 2011. West also is an assistant swim coach for West Virginia University men’s and women’s swimming teams.

Prior to his position at WLU, he was employed at Wheeling Jesuit University as swim coach and registrar. He earned a bachelor’s in education at WLU and a master’s in athletic coaching education at WVU. West is currently seeking his doctorate in coaching and teaching studies at WVU.

The 2015 class of Fellows includes a total of 10 coaches and faculty from California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The ASCA Fellows program is a mentoring program for swimming coaches, designed to foster the development of the future coach-leaders of American swimming. The program annual takes a select group of coaches and pairs them with a mentor coach to work on a yearlong project. This year’s class will have Fellows working on one of two projects: one focusing on efforts to bolster swimming as a domestic college sport, the second on assisting with the formation of a World Swimming Association.

The 2015 class represents the fifteenth class of Fellows, which began in 2000.

West and his wife Sarah reside in West Liberty.