Duane Sorenson Retires After 27 Seasons as Head Coach of Iowa State Swimming & Diving

Iowa State has announced the retirement of long time head swimming and diving coach Duane Sorenson. Also serving as the dean of Big 12 women’s swimming and diving coaches, Sorenson has been at the helm of Iowa State’s program for 27 seasons, which makes him the second-longest tenured head coach of a women’s sport in Iowa State history.

Sorenson is also the winningest coach in Cyclones swimming and diving history, retiring as the head coach responsible for 141 of Iowa State’s 240 all-time dual meet wins, which comes out to around 59%. No other Iowa State swimming and diving head coach has reached 100 dual meet victories. Moreover, Sorenson ends his tenure at Iowa State with a 141-114-2 dual meet record. Sorenson orchestrated 11 seasons in which the Cyclones won 6 or more dual meets, and they recorded top 3 finishes at the Big 12 Championships, including a a 4-year stretch of top 3 finishes from 2014-2017.

Speaking on his retirement, Sorenson said in part “I’ve had the pleasure to work with so many outstanding, motivated, bright, determined, and competitive young women over these many years and my goal for each Iowa State athlete I coached was as they looked back on their Cyclone career, they were thankful and would readily say, ‘those were the best four years of my life.'”

Sorenson was honored as Big 12 Swim Coach of the Year twice during his tenure at Iowa State. The first came in 2001, when Sorenson was named Co-Swim Coach of the Year. He won sole honors in 2015, when his Cyclones came in 2nd with a program record 618.5 points. Iowa State finished as high as 2nd at Big 12s as recently as last year, when they came in 2nd at the 2023 meet in a very close battle with TCU, West Virginia, and Kansas.

Navigating the addition of BYU, Cincinnati, and Houston to the Big 12 Conference, Iowa State came in 8th at the Big 12 Championships last month. With Sorenson retiring, head diving coach Jeff Warrick and assistant head swim coach Kelly Nordell are the only remaining members of the staff. While Iowa State will surely conduct a national search for their new head coach, Nordell will likely be a contender for the position. She’s been coaching at Iowa State since 2008 and has been serving as assistant head coach since 2010.

Sorenson’s coaching career has been one marked by long tenures. Prior to his 27-year stint as head coach of Iowa State, Sorenson was the head coach of Minnesota-based club team South East Metro Sharks for 20 years. During his 20 years with SEMS, he led the team to 5 Minnesota state championships and 11 runner-up finishes. He coached 25 senior national qualifiers, 67 junior national qualifiers, and more than 120 of his SEMS swimmers went on to compete in college.