Canales, the Mark S. Randall Head Swimming and Diving Coach, comes to Colgate from the University of Michigan where he served two stints as an assistant coach from 1982-87 and 2006-08, before serving as the Development Officer for Athletics.
Canales led the Raider women to their third Patriot League TItle in 2011 and was named the PL Coach of the Year. He tutored a 14 All-Patriot League women performers in 2011, including Erin McGraw, who was named the PL Swimmer of the Meet at the 2011 championships. He also coached four men to All-Patriot League performers.
From 2006-08, Canales served as the head assistant coach at Michigan under assistant Olympic coach Bob Bowman. During that time Canales helped three swimmers capture back-to-back NCAA national championships along with guiding the team to the 2008 Big Ten title.
Before returning to Michigan, Canales served as the head coach of the city of Keller, Texas swim team for two years, and the city of Richardson, Texas swim team from 1992-2005. He managed elite USA Swimming clubs at both locations and produced two Texas high school swimmer of the year recipients, a U.S. national team member, the 1994 national female high school swimmer of the year, 10 Olympic Trials qualifiers, numerous Texas state high school champions and All-Americans, and two Texas high school championship teams (Berkner High, 1995; JJ Pearce High, 2004). He earned the North Texas Senior Coach of the Year award as well.
From 1990-92, Canales was the head coach of swimming, diving and water polo at the University of California-Santa Cruz. In two seasons he coached five NCAA Division III Championship qualifiers and one All-American while his students earned 14 academic all-Conference awards.
Prior to his time at UC Santa Cruz, Canales was the head assistant coach at Michigan from 1982-87. He served under legendary coach Jon Urbancheck and helped to produce 13 Olympians, multiple NCAA national champions and multiple USA Swimming and foreign national champions. He assisted the team in winning back-to-back Big Ten Conference team championships in 1987 and '88.
As an athlete, Canales was a four-year All-American at Michigan, where he graduated with a degree in education and exercise physiology in 1982. During his career, he won 12 Big Ten Championship titles, including four straight 100-yard freestyle titles. He also represented Puerto Rico on three Olympic Teams (1976, '80, '84) and was inducted into the Puerto Rico National Sports Hall of Fame in 1993.
