Bowling Green High School hopes a “two heads are better than one” philosophy leads to a swimming and diving state championship.

Longtime BGHS swimming and diving coach Ron Prieskorn has handed swimming duties over to Dee Wilkins, who had coached at Russellville High School since 1997.

Prieskorn will remain the school’s diving coach.

“We have some really good young divers coming on and they need more attention than they are getting right now,” Prieskorn said. “I’ve been spread thin trying to do both the swimming and diving. I can give them a little more time and try and build the diving program up. And it just seemed like a good time to take a step back.”

Prieskorn has been at Bowling Green since 1990. Prieskorn stepped down after the 2001 campaign, but returned in 2005.

Under his guidance, the Purples have won three straight Region 1 titles.

“He’s as big a part of our overall program at Bowling Green High athletically, academically, culturally as anybody,” principal Gary Fields said.

Wilkins is a familiar face to both Bowling Green and Prieskorn.

Wilkins graduated from BGHS in 1988 and was a nine-year letter winner on the team from 1980-88. Along with coaching at Russellville, Wilkins coached with Prieskorn at Indian Hills Country Club.

“It was a great opportunity and that opportunity comes available only so often,” Wilkins said. “I’m very excited about it. And I have a great relationship with Ron. We’ve worked together pretty much hand-in-hand the last four or five years.”

Wilkins was especially successful coaching the Russellville girls’ program. Russellville won a girls’ region title in 2002 after a runner-up finish in 2001. Former Russellville swimmer Rebekah Epley currently swims at the University of Florida, while Anne Chambers is at the University of Louisville.

Russellville won the girls’ title despite not having a diving program, something he won’t have to worry about at BGHS.

“It’s like going into a football game and down 50-0 before you even step on the field,” Wilkins said. “It’s hard to overcome that. It took winning almost all of the events.”

Prieskorn said his decision to focus solely on diving would have been more difficult had Wilkins not been interested in returning to Bowling Green.

“That was a definite factor,” Prieskorn said. “The kids on the team, several I’ve worked with for six years now, I would like to assure that they can continue their swimming. To leave the team without a coach would have been hard to do.”

According to Fields, Prieskorn expressed an interest to focus solely on diving and step away from swimming about a month after the season ended.

The end result now includes a pair of former collegiate athletes on the coaching staff. Prieskorn was a four-year member of the diving team at Eastern Michigan and his wife, Sue, also an assistant coach, was a diver at Bowling Green State.

Wilkins was a four-year member of the Western Kentucky swimming team.

“It’s a best-of-both-worlds thing,” Fields said. “You have two collegiate divers to coach your divers. You have a collegiate swimmer coaching your swimmers. They all work together. It was that perfect storm for us.”

Those involved hope the changes could eventually lead to a combined state championship.

Bowling Green won a combined state title in 1993.

“With this, it gives us the opportunity to move in that direction,” Prieskorn said. “Hopefully, we can put it all together. It’s not going to happen next year, but maybe in a couple years we can bring home some of these state honors.”