Tennessee head swimming & diving coach Matt Kredich has received a 5-year contract extention through June of 2024. The new contract will bring his average annual salary to $214,000, or $1,070,000 over the life of the extension.
Tennessee swimmers and divers earned 44 All-America certificates in 2019. Diver Zhipeng (Colin) Zeng won the 2019 NCAA Championship in 1-meter diving (the second NCAA title of his UT career), and the women’s 200 medley relay team of Madeline Banic, Erika Brown, Nikol Popov and Meghan Small gave Tennessee another 2019 NCAA title.
Tennessee finished eighth at the women’s NCAA Championships this year, while the men finished 11th nationally. It was the second consecutive top-10 finish for the women’s team and the second year in a row that the men finished 11th.
Over the last five years, Tennessee’s women have never finished worse than fourth in the SEC, and the men have finished sixth or better every year during that span—including third place in 2019.
Under his direction, Tennessee has totaled 482 All-America honors, won 56 combined SEC titles and eight individual NCAA titles. Four Olympians, Christine Magnuson, Molly Hannis, Kira Toussaint and Martina Moravcikova swam under Kredich at UT.
On the international stage, Kredich represented Tennessee as the USA Women’s National Team head coach at the 2015 Pan American Games and will serve as the USA Men’s National Team head coach at the upcoming 2019 Pan American Games. He also served as the head coach for Team USA at the 2013 World University Games and was on staff for the 2009 and 2014 World University Games.
“I consider each day that I get to coach at Tennessee as an honor, privilege, and great responsibility, and I’m very grateful for the faith that (athletics director) Philip Fulmer and the University of Tennessee have placed in me by giving me the chance to be here for another five years,” Kredich said. “I work with an amazing staff, an amazing group of young men and women, and we’re all very excited about the direction that our programs are headed in right now.”
“Our swimming & diving programs continue to represent us extremely well in the pool and in the classroom,” Fulmer said. “Matt has an innovative swimming mind and coaching style and is consistently challenging his staff and student-athletes. Tennessee is very fortunate to have a director of swimming & diving of his caliber. We all have tremendous respect for the way he leads his program.”
The extension comes after Kredich was one of a number of high profile coaches connected to the open men’s head coaching positioni at Stanford. Hawaii head coach Dan Schemmel eventually took that job.
Tennessee Athletics contributed to this report.
He shouldn’t be credited with the divers success
Troy was up there as well before he retired from UF. The release of salaries at the high end is good for the sport as it helps the 50-75% in the upper middle grow. We all want swimming to be big-time…let us then treat it like a big-time sport.
Love that this was made public. $ signs get the attention of young folks and make a sport that they love into a potential career.
Congrats, Matt! What an awesome coach and all around person! So happy for you!
Wondering who is the highest paid college swimming coach??
Durden or Meehan? They’re big names at premier programmes and living expenses are big in the area. Other candidate could be Salo (combined Head Coach, private school, expensive area).
My guess would be Eddie Reese! Texas has huge budget and he has been the most successful swim coach of all time!
I think it might be Bob Bowman.
Dave Durden (2017): $218,237 total pay + $41,483 benefits (per Transparent California)
Eddie Reese (2017): $283,691 total compensation (per Texas Tribune)
Bob Bowman (2018): $240,000 (per The State Press)
State employee compensation is generally public record and fairly easy to find. Needless to say this only includes compensation from the state university employer, and doesn’t include income from outside sources (swim camps, sponsorships, USA swimming, etc.).
It might be Jack Bauerle as he got a raise to $380,000 in pure salary not including extra’s. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.onlineathens.com/sports/dogbytes/2017-07-21/uga-swim-coach-jack-bauerle-gets-big-boost-pay-extension-track-coach-also%3ftemplate=ampart
This is the highest one that I know of – keeping in mind that not all salaries are made public. Can’t think of any private schools that would beat $380k, and Pennsylvania is the toughest state to pull them from.
Geez, would hope he’d get more for having to put up with Phillip Fullmer. https://www.knoxnews.com/story/sports/columnists/university-of-tennessee/john-adams/2017/02/17/john-adams-phillip-fulmer-dealt-scandals-sexual-assault-coach/98002524/
I responded to the “wrong” story … wait. Go back to the California legislative ruling story, then read this.
For what?
For continuing a respected history and culture, for continuing to develop swimmers into national championship and Olympic contenders, and of course because of his name having been at the top of the Stanford search. Tennessee obviously values him as essential to their success in the pool and he is consistently the top name in any coaching search for a Power 5 school. They don’t want him leaving. That’s why, Ahab.
I’m a UT alum. Matt managed the transition when JT retired, taking over the men’s team. Matt’s earned his salary and then some. He has a reputation for creating a positive, healthy environment, and – as all coaches hope if they are truly successful – he has earned the respect of his swimmers beyond the pool. Culture building is a tall order, and it takes years to build a house upon solid stone. Matt’s doing that.
I had the first + vote on this comment…if I could, I would + vote 100 more times!
Congrats Matt, keep up the great efforts!
Retired?! That what we’re calling it?
Manowar….you are 100% correct to call that out. JT did not retire. JT was fired. (SwimSwam reported it back in 2012. Braden Keith, SwimSwam co-founder / Editor-in-Chief, told me at the time what was happening, but only to inform me. Internally communications about those ongoing SwimSwam reports do not include me. I couldn’t be a part of the reporting process because of my long history with JT. He coached me from the age of 16 through age 28. In sum, I could not be objective, and, frankly, it was (and is) not my role at SwimSwam. I manage ad sales/marketing/mag design/job listing and work with Coleman on production.)
So you know, I am well aware of JT’s addiction issues,… Read more »