Greg Meehan‘s Stanford women’s team has become a dynasty. In 2016, favored to take the NCAA’s by storm, a relay DQ led to a narrow 2nd place finish. For the next 2 seasons, in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018, the Stanford women were seemingly unbeatable, boasting Olympic powerhouses in Katie Ledecky, Simone Manuel, and Lia Neal, as well as NCAA stars and relay mainstays Ella Eastin, Janet Hu, and Ally Howe. With these athletes being the tip of the iceberg, the cardinal have claimed the last 2 NCAA titles by margins of 160.5 (2017) and a whopping 220 (2018) points.
As the saying goes in athletics, every year is a new team. 5 of the 6 aforementioned names are no longer competing in the NCAA. This makes Stanford’s outgoing points scored last year substantial, losing (among others) 3 out of 4 of their medley relay pieces in Manuel, Howe, and Hu, and 3 individual champions in Ledecky, Manuel, and Howe. With all of these leaders in and out of the pool leaving, how to the Stanford women evolve?
For starters, they have 3 rising seniors who already lead by action. Ella Eastin is the returning 2018 Swimmer of the Year. Kim Williams is the 1 returning piece of 2 victorious medley relays. Leah Stevens has thrived in a Ledecky-era distance program and scored top 5 in the mile the last 2 years. Moving down the ladder, Stanford returns 10 underclassmen that scored over 100 points individually, with a high ceiling on improvement rate. And then you have the incoming freshman.
Stanford is bringing in 9 athletes (7 swimmers) in it’s class of 2022. Among those are 8-time commonwealth medalist Taylor Ruck, NAG record holder Zoe Bartel, and star recruits Allie Raab, Amalie Fackenthal, and Lucie Nordmann. More than anything, as described in the video above, the Stanford personnel are excited about the energy that so many young and excited student athletes can bring to Palo Alto.
As Greg Meehan, Ella Eastin, and rising junior Katie Drabot mention, it takes time to build the team. It’s vital to give incoming freshman time to adjust to their new lifestyle. You also need to give the team as a whole time to adjust to their new teammates, and develop an identity that is individual to them, one that doesn’t necessarily lean on the fact that last year they were crowned champions.
Greg Meehan is doing a wonderful job! I hope he’s having a helluva good time. In the unlikely event he’d ask me for my observations about his swim program, I’d say, “Drink it all in and savor these wonderful athletes, their friendships, their championships, and their accomplishments outside the pool.”
A lot of good things are lined up to make this program “1927 New York Yankees-esque.” But they don’t last forever (for example, Stanford could get a new admissions director who might change admissions’ focus to being less “athlete-friendly,” something that happened in the late 1990s and early 2000s).
I remember Stanford swimming in the mid-1990s. Both Richard Quick and Skip Kenney won numerous NCAA titles, produced many… Read more »
It will be interesting to see what Ruck’s third event will be. I think the 200 free and 200 back are lock ins, but will she swim the 100 back? 100 free? All five relays?
I would actually think she might do both the 100 back and 100 free… currently, Stanford doesn’t have anyone in those events, with the graduation of Manuel, Hu and Howe. I feel like at the 200 free, the Cardinal at least have Drabot returning. So Ruck conceivably could do the 100 back, 100 free and 200 back.
The coonskin capped Lady Vol nation is gunning for the title in 2020. Next year is will be Stanford the following year the Tennessee women will upstage the NCAA world by being led by Erika “Take Em Down” Brown and her support cast of swimmers and divers. You heard it here first!!!
Which stroke will Erika be swimming in relays?
Any stroke she wants! She may anchor the 200 free relay swimming breaststroke in 2020 and they will still win it!
Cal is going to be tough… I wouldn’t hand over the NCAA title to Stanford just yet.
I’m a Cal fan but IDK. Losing Osman and Noemie Thomas is tough, especially on relays. Their incoming freshman class doesn’t come close to Stanford. They have Cassidy Bayer coming in but shes much better in longcourse
Yea but if Baker, Bilquist, McLaughlin and Weitzel reach their potential, along with the sophomore class of Darcel and Neumann, that’s as good of a core as anyone out there. Of course I want Stanford to win, but I think people are underestimating how good Cal’s team can be.
Whoops Osman graduated the year before lol
It will be another great PAC12 season. It may come down to which coach coaches best. For example, which coach is best at preventing injuries and broken bones during practice and training? Which coach personalizes training for each swimmer so each swimmer progresses and maximizes speed and talent? Which coach grows swimmer confidence without drama and unnecessary stress? Which coach overtrains weekly in number of hours? Which coach successfully drew the recruits that completed missing pieces of the team puzzle? Which coach has a pool and weight room environment that supports the health and safety of student swimmers? The depth of talent on the west coast bodes well for the 2020 Olympic season.
Any chance Ruck doesnt show up after making so much progress up in Canada? Or maybe just swims freshman year and is done with it.
Consensus seems to be that Meehan improved Ledecky’s freestyle technique, even though it was probably just about fine as it was. I suspect Ruck will give it a go for at least a year.
What is better: to swim the right way or to swim the fast way?
How Meehan could improve Katie Ledecky’s performance if he stated from the very beginning that he doesn’t know what he can add to what Katie had already achieved before him with other coaches.
I’m just wondering what if some coach “improved” Janet Evans’ technique would we see all these records that stood for almost two decades?
They’ll be fine. I think they’ll still win it all but their relays wont be nearly as good. Even with the talent coming in, you can’t replace the splits by Manuel, Hu and Howe…atleast not initially.
I think they are going to be alright.