After being named to the coaching staff for Team USA at the 2023 World Championships, Stanford head coach Greg Meehan will no longer be heading to Fukuoka this summer.
After the conclusion of the US’s World Championships Trials, Meehan was selected to serve as an assistant coach alongside Ron Aitken, Blaire Anderson, Cory Chitwood, Braden Holloway, Ray Looze, Anthony Nesty, and Eddie Reese. Texas women’s head coach Carol Capitani and ASU head coach Bob Bowman were named prior to Trials as the two head coaches for the USA this summer.
This will be the first time since 2013 that Greg Meehan won’t be on the coaching staff for a World Championships. He served as an assistant in 2015, as head coach for the women’s team in 2017, co-head coach with Dave Durden in 2019, and assistant head coach in 2022. He has also been on the coaching staff at the past two Olympics, serving as assistant head coach of the women’s team at Rio 2016 and as head coach of the women’s team at Toyko 2020.
According to Meehan, he decided that it didn’t make sense for him to travel with the team this summer:
“I’ve been on my own for the last 6+ weeks and with Katie [Robinson] still two weeks away from being on campus, it just doesn’t make sense for me to be gone for 3 weeks. This will allow me to catch-up, get organized with Katie when she arrives, and be ready for the upcoming Olympic year. I called Lindsay [Mintenko] on Monday and she and Carol [Capitani] and Bob [Bowman] were very supportive.”
In his statement, Meehan is referring to Katie Robinson, the former head coach at Northwestern who will join the Stanford coaching staff this summer as associate head coach of the women’s team. Robinson will arrive during the time that Meehan would have been overseas with Team USA.
Of the ten coaches originally named to the coaching staff, Meehan was the only coach with only one swimmer on the team. Stanford’s Torri Huske qualified for the team in the 50 butterfly, 100 butterfly, and 4×100 freestyle relay.
SwimSwam has been unable to confirm circulating reports about Meehan’s replacement.
Tell that to Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, neither of which attended Stanford.
The issue with the swim community, is we love to watch and speculate on coaches, and swimmers.
Meehan has had so much success in his coaching career, and I don’t think some realize how difficult it is to remain in a top position in a highly competitive sport – people have success, and people have failures. Sometimes it just doesn’t work, and sometimes it does.
I challenge anyone in this comment section to do what a coach like Meehan does for a year, and then, let me know if you’re cut out for it.
Good on Meehan for stepping down to focus on his athletes and program.
I don’t think that’s a “swim community” thing. Ever been on basketball Twitter?
If a Super Bowl winning coach can get canned, so can a swimming coach. It’s what have you done for me lately. Just ask Bryan Billick.
After 30 years you’re hopefully at the position you would ended up in regardless of either.
But 5 to 10 years your have a the advantage of the degree over someone who doesn’t.
The swimming benefit ends about 15 pounds and counting.
Tell that to Bill Gates and Paul Allen, neither of which attended Stanford.
Genuine question/open to any answers – why was Cory Chitwood selected as a coach for Worlds? Seems odd. Stroke coach for Matheny and King, so deemed valuable enough? Just because Ray Looze has some seniority/power in selection? And what ties does he have to open water swimming? Thanks.
He was chosen as an open water coach for Mariah Denigan, not as a pool coach. Open water staffs were set before the pool swimming meet.
In practice there’s going to be some overlap, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he got some on deck time with Indiana’s pool swimmers. But Indiana was entitled to send a coach to be on the open water staff, and I assume they chose Cory, probably with the hope that Ray would be on the pool staff. To me that’s good business. They took a gamble and it paid off – there was a chance that Ray wouldn’t be chosen on the pool staff, but he was. So they get 2.
Peter Andrew has entered the chat.
Fired before even being hired.
Maybe they should take advantage of the new NCAA rule and hire a 3rd coach.
Good idea and they probably will but that would only be more of a reason to stay home.
Look, I think different coaching styles work differently for different people and it can change for people over time. That’s just fine. It probably explains why Regan Smith and Katie Ledecky have done well elsewhere and also why Maya Dirado had such great success at Stanford. I also think Greg Meehan’s coaching undeniably hurt Simone Manuel *and* Ella Eastin and he doesn’t seem to have ever reflected on that. Maybe he’s done so privately, but if I were an elite recruit watching what’s been happening at Stanford, I’d be going looking elsewhere.
How can you say his coaching hurt Ella Easton and Simone Manuel, when he coached them to best times, American Records, and NCAA Championships?
You could be right but it may not be that straightforward. Both of those athletes were blue chip recruits coming out of high school and were NAG record holders. Manuel even held the american record in the 100 yd. free as a high school senior. They were going to do well because they, like so many other Stanford recruits, were so talented. Maybe it took years of training under Meehan to finally see that this training approach over time hurt them?
Yet, no one mentions that Stanford University women’s swimming program was a debacle at the Olympic Team Trials – Wave II. Simone Manuel failed to qualify for the final of the W 100 FR. Katie Drabot failed to qualify for the final of the W 200 FL. Katie Ledecky was pedestrian, at best.
To add insult to injury, Simone Manuel failed to reach the final of the W 50 FR at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics.
What has Greg Meehan done for Stanford University women’s swimming during the current decade (2020 to the present)?
I don’t think it makes sense to blame Meehan for what happened to Ella Eastin. She retired after developing dysautonomia, which was possibly caused by covid.
No one wants to do the work to analyze how Stanford did. Go to meet mobile and look at the results of Alto swim club. No one progressed from their long course entry times. Total flame out. The men don’t even bother to show up only 3 guys entered.
Greg doesn’t coach the men, so I’m not seeing how that’s relevant.
The Greg Meehan apologists would rather sweep it under the rug.