Northwestern Names Jeremy Kipp to Head Men’s & Women’s Swimming

Northwestern has named Jeremy Kipp the head coach of the newly-combined men’s and women’s swimming and diving program.

Within two days of each other, NU’s women’s and men’s head coaches resigned from their respective roles —  women’s coach Abby Steketee on April 11 and men’s coach Jarod Schroeder on April 13. Days later, Northwestern announced the plan to combine the men’s and women’s teams under one new coach. The school has chosen Kipp, who was previously the head coach of Boise State women’s swimming and diving program.

Kipp joined Boise State in 2016 — since then, the Broncos won back-to-back Mountain West conference titles in 2017 and 2018. Having coached over 100 academic all-conference honorees, Kipp has fostered success in the pool and in the classroom. The Broncos’ 36th place finish at the 2017 NCAA Championships was the highest in program history, and during his time at Boise State, his swimmers broke 16 school records and won 26 conference titles.

In March, he was named the 2018 Mountain West coach of the year.

Prior to his stint at Boise State, Kipp spent 8 seasons with USC, 3 as an assistant and 5 as the head assistant coach. 38 individual NCAA champions competed for USC while Kipp was on staff, and he helped the Trojan men claim their first-ever Pac-12 title in 2015.

Kipp was on the coaching staff at UC Santa Barbara before working at USC, spending eight seasons there. He has international coaching experience, having worked with the Polish and Austrian national teams, as well as serving as personal coach to Olympians Markus Rogan and Oussama Mellouli.

“Today is an exciting day for me and for my family,” said Kipp. “The opportunity to join a university like Northwestern, one of the top institutions in the nation and a founding member of the Big Ten Conference, is a humbling honor. I am so thankful for the Boise State student-athletes, coaches and staff I’ve had the opportunity to work with over the last three years, and extremely proud of what we accomplished together. Thank you to President Schapiro, Dr. Jim Phillips and the entire search committee for their consideration and trust. Suzanne, Jonathan, Patrick and I are thrilled to join the Wildcats family.”

“We are elated to welcome Jeremy to Northwestern,” said Phillips. “After a rigorous, comprehensive, national search, there was no doubt about the right fit for our University. This new structure, with a singular leader overseeing both our men’s and women’s teams, is one we are confident will streamline the Wildcats’ development into the championship program we all believe it can be. Jeremy’s resume speaks for itself with back-to-back conference championships and three-straight coach of the year awards. We are excited to watch the impact he will make on the world-class experience of our young men and women.”

Northwestern’s women’s team recently finished 22nd at the 2018 NCAA Championships and 7th at the 2018 Big Ten Championships. The NU men, with zero sophomores on the roster, struggled in 2018, finishing 9th at the 2018 Big Ten Champs and scoring zero points at the 2018 NCAA Championships.