Aug. 27, 2012

STANFORD, Calif. - Greg Meehan has been named Stanford head women's swimming coach, as announced Monday by Jaquish and Kenninger Director of Athletics Bernard Muir.

"We are excited to welcome Greg Meehan to the Stanford family as our new women's swimming and diving head coach," Muir said. "Greg brings a wealth of experience from his previous coaching stints at Princeton, UCLA, Pacific and most recently at Cal. He has excelled at coaching student-athletes not only in academic settings but also in the highest level of the sport while producing NCAA champions and Olympians."

Regarded as one of the top assistants in the country, Meehan takes over a Cardinal program that has earned nine national titles and most recently finished fourth at the 2012 NCAA Championships.

No stranger to success on the pool deck, Meehan most recently helped lead the Cal men's swimming and diving program to back-to-back national titles.

"It is with great excitement and humility that I accept the position of head women's swimming coach at Stanford," Meehan said. "I would like to thank Mr. Muir and Mr. (Earl) Koberlein for their trust in me to lead this incredibly storied program. They have presented my family and I with an amazing opportunity to work with some of the best and brightest student-athletes in the world.

"But I wouldn't be here if I didn't have support from the right people at the right ime of my life. From (Princeton women's head coach) Susan Teeter and (UCLA women's head coach) Cyndi Gallagher to (Cal men's head coach) David Durden and my amazing wife Tess, I've been very blessed.

"I look forward to getting to know the team very soon, and working with them through the opportunities and challenges that each season presents. "

Meehan, who recently complete his fifth season with the Golden Bears, was promoted to Cal's associate head men's swimming and diving coach last September. In Meehan's four seasons with Cal, the program produced a pair of NCAA championships (2011, 2012) and a runner-up finish in 2010.

Meehan coached at Pacific from 2005-08, leading his women's team to a second-place finish in the Big West Conference in 2006-07 and two fourth-place finishes.

On the men's side, Meehan led the Tigers to three fourth-place conference finishes. Krzysztof Zoldak earned Big West Swimmer of the Year in 2005, while Ja-Neil Bragg advanced to the NCAA Championships in each of Meehan's three seasons. Bragg also competed in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials.

Zoldak and Wojciech Bettej both advanced to the NCAA Championships in 2006-07. In all, Meehan's Pacific teams broke 13 school records and three conference records, and seven of his student-athletes qualified for the NCAAs.

At the international level, Meehan served as a manager for the United States team that competed in the 2007 World University Games in Bangkok, Thailand.

Prior to coaching at Pacific, Meehan was the assistant women's coach under Cyndi Gallagher at UCLA from 2001-05, helping the Bruins to a 2003 Pac-10 title and a seventh-place NCAA finish in 2004. A total of 33 All-Americans and 32 school records broken. He specialized in working with the Bruin distance and individual medley corps, in addition to recruiting duties.

Meehan also was assistant women's coach at Princeton from 1999-2001, helping the Tigers to a 17-0 dual meet record and the 2000 and 2001 Ivy League titles. Meehan was the first assistant and later an interim head coach at William & Mary in 1998-99.

In the summer of 2003, Meehan served as assistant coach for the USA Swimming National Distance Camp at the USOC Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., mentoring the top young male and female distance swimmers from around the country.

A graduate of Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., Meehan earned a degree in mathematics and secondary education. While at Rider, he competed in the 200 backstroke, was a member of several Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference champion relays and was a four-time All-Academic Award recipient.

Meehan and his wife, Tess, reside in Moraga, Calif., with their two sons, Salvatore and James.

Meehan replaces former Stanford head coach Lea Maurer, who stepped back from her coaching career earlier this summer to devote more time to her family.

Maurer coached the Cardinal to back-to-back Pac-10 championships in 2010 and 2011. In each of her seven seasons on the Farm, Mauer guided Stanford to finishes of fifth-place or better at the NCAA Championships.

Meehan is the second head coach hired by Muir since the newly appointed athletic director arrived at Stanford on Aug. 13. Earlier this week, Chris Miltenberg was named Stanford's Franklin P. Johnson Director of Track & Field and head cross-country coach.

Sharing the pool with Meehan will be Ted Knapp, who assumed the head coaching duties for the men's swimming and diving program in July. Knapp spent the previous 28 years as an assistant at Stanford before being named the Goldman Family Director of Men's Swimming and Diving.