The Stanford Cardinal women’s swimming and diving team have added former Auburn and Texas women’s head coach Kim Brackin to their coaching staff, head coach Greg Meehan confirmed on Tuesday – her first official day on deck.
With the addition, Stanford becomes the latest team to take advantage of a NCAA rule change that essentially allowed single-gender programs to add a third paid swim coach to the staff. According to Meehan, an anonymous donor endowed the new paid position last month.
“We received a large gift last month to endow the position,” Meehan said. Obviously, December isn’t a typical time to hire a coach and (associate head coach) Katie (Robinson) and I wanted to think a little outside the box on who would be a great add and be available at this time of year and Kim‘s name kept coming up. She’s tremendous, and has great experience, and is going to be a huge add for us. For now we’re looking short term from now until Trials and will take it from there to see if she wants to stay beyond that.”
Brackin has been out of the college scene for over a decade now, but she was one of the biggest names in college coaching in the 2000s. Her most recent stop was at Texas where she preceded Carol Capitani as the women’s head coach from 2006 through 2012. The Longhorn women finished in 9th place at the NCAA Championships during her last campaign.
Prior to her time at Texas, she coached at Auburn during its heyday from 1997 to 2005, serving as the women’s co-head coach with Dave Marsh over her last three years there. Her tenure included helping the Tiger women to win three consecutive NCAA championships from 2002-2004. There, she was directly responsible for the training of some of the biggest swimming names in the world, including two-time Olympic gold medalist Kirsty Coventry. She continued to coach Coventry after leaving Austin, leading her to a 6th-place finish at the 2012 Olympic Games.
She also coached World Champion and American Record holder Maggie Bowen, and 2003 and 2005 World Championship silver medalist Margaret Hoelzer.
Since leaving college coaching, Brackin founded Brackin Elite Swim Training, where she gave private lessons to elite swimmers, mostly out of an endless pool. She also served as a coach for the LA Current of the International Swim League.
Brackin also has had several international appointments, including serving on Olympic staffs for Zimbabwe and on the US staff for the 2003 World University Games.
Brackin now joins Meehan and associate head coach Katie Robinson, who was a senior at Texas during Brackin’s first season with the Longhorns.
The Stanford women have finished 3rd at NCAAs the last two seasons. Though they have lost a lot of superstars that puts that streak in doubt, they have some shown some speed and development early this season. Their next dual meet comes in two weeks against Arizona State.
Kim and others talking about the women’s perspective in coaching. https://blog.swimisca.org/swim-coaching-womens-perspectives-a-panel-from-iscas-coaches-summit-now-available/
Hope they keep her out of the team meetings if they want to swim well, especially at the end of the season. This might be the best thing to happen to any team that competes against Stanford.
Also, hope they don’t put Kim in charge of the dry land training program. Athletic training staff will be overwhelmed.
I noticed you transcribed Meehan twice as “ad” not “add.” I would’ve assumed he meant addition, but I guess you assumed advantage?
Congrats, well-deserved. She is an amazing coach!
Let’s hope she finally learned how to get swimmers to peak at the end of the season.
Teri McKeever’s recent three month Safe Sport ban must’ve taken her off Meehan’s list of mid-season coaching hires!
I know it’s been a while, but isn’t she pretty controversial? Last I remember Kathleen Hersey left the women’s team to go pro and train with the Texas men. She did recruit some of the top classes when she was at Texas though.
Will fit right in with the Meehan culture, lol
I’ve never heard anyone say bad things about Meehan as a person, or the way he treats people. You can think what you want about his coaching (I’m more high on him than some), but if you’ve never dealt with him directly or know people who swim for him, why take shots at his character?
Coach Meehan is a class act.
I most definitely have worked with Greg, and seen him bully 18 year old girls. Ask people who have worked for Stanford Swim Camps, in the last 10 years, and ask about how much they love the staff
IDK. Was she the one who made the relay error at NCAAs that led to a big DQ?
She was obviously great as an assistant at Auburn. That staff had some who made great head coaches (Durden, Wochomurka) and some who didn’t (Brackin, Hawke). Some assistants don’t make great head coaches.
I know she struggled to hit tapers for NCAAs. I’m not one of those people who pretends like Lea Maurer was terrible at Stanford because omg they got 4th one year, but Texas finishing 9th isn’t great – especially with the recruits she was pulling.
I don’t really remember hearing about any major personal issues though.
What I find interesting is the general availability of the most successful coaching trio arguably in college swimming history (Marsh, Brackin, Hawke) to just flit in and out of coaching staffs. What does that tell us?
Having a big ego sucks to work with?
Post of The New Year.
Regardless of success, an oversized ego / arrogance always seems to eventually be the undoing of many coaches. Club, college, high school – doesn’t matter. Eventually, the outsized ego does them in (or the consequences / resultant actions from the ego).
Don’t get me going on Club coaches ego…Florida and NC
I feel like there were some (not that positive) references to Kim’s coaching style on Spindrift Beck’s podcast.
I think I recall Laura Sogar saying similar things somewhere
Yea she had some of the top recruited classes and killed those girls mentally. She is good at training 1 person at a time. Maybe she has learned some lessons but she has a tendency to think her way is the right way no matter what.
Outside the box for sure