By Tim Cary, Miami athletics

Hollie Bonewit-Cron has been breaking through barriers her whole life.
 
The Miami University head coach of men's and women's swimming and diving has made a career out of jobs that didn't even exist before she arrived.
 
Georgia Southern created a graduate assistant role for her in 2000 to help launch her coaching career. The University of Florida added an assistant coach position to bring her on staff in 2002. Nova Southeastern had never even had a swimming and diving program before hiring Bonewit-Cron in 2009 to serve as the school's first-ever head coach.
 
And when Bonewit-Cron took over at Miami in 2016, she became the first coach of the newly-combined RedHawk men's and women's programs, making her the first female coach in Miami men's swim/dive history.
 
That led to a historic accomplishment for Bonewit-Cron in 2019, as she became the first-ever female coach to lead a men's team to a Mid-American Conference championship in any sport when the RedHawks captured the conference meet.
 
"I don't ever look at it as 'first female,'" Bonewit-Cron said. "For me, it's just another step in building a program."
 
Miami took the next step in its program last week, as the RedHawk men's team brought home its second consecutive MAC trophy and third in four years.

The back-to-back championships mark the first time in more than 50 years that Miami has won the event twice in a row; the 1966-67 and 1967-68 squads were the last ones to repeat.
 
"It's very humbling to know that we got to that point," said Bonewit-Cron. "These athletes did more than I could have ever expected them to do…I really attribute that to the grit this team had all season."

Go to the RedHawks site for a full version of the story.