Texas A&M has parted ways with head diving coach Jay Lerew just days after one of his athletes won an NCAA Championship.
Multiple members of the team described it as a “firing” to SwimSwam, though SwimSwam has not received a response from Texas A&M or Lerew to confirm that characterization.
On Saturday, Texas A&M freshman diver Emilio Trevino won the men’s platform diving competition. A platform specialist, he was responsible for 20 out of the program’s 28 points at the meet, where they finished in 30th place. Junior Logan Brown (13th in the 200 breaststroke) was their only other individual scorer, and they also picked up four relay points.
On the women’s side, sophomore diver Gabrielle Filzen and senior diver Joslyn Oakley combined for five of the team’s 19.5 total points, which also placed them 30th at the meet.
Lerew joined the A&M staff in 2009, just his second collegiate gig after leading the Colorado State diving program from 1979-1981. In between, he worked mostly in club diving, with programs like Team Orlando in Florida, Moss Farm Diving in Georgia, and the Schroeder YMCA in Wisconsin.
Other NCAA Champion divers on his resume include Jaele Patrick, who won 3-meter in 2012, and Kurtis Matthews, who won 1-meter and 3-meter in 2022. He is a seven-time conference Diving Coach of the Year between the Big 12 and SEC and won the CSCAA National Diving Coach of the Year in both 2012 and 2022.
Other Olympians he coached while at A&M include Eric Sehn (Canada) and Grant Nel (Australia).
With Team Orlando, he coached 10 individual senior national title winners in 11 years.
Lerew served as the U.S. Olympic head diving coach at the 2000 Olympic Games.
His wife Wendy Lerew was an All-American diver at Florida State and a two-time Canadian Olympian on platform.
I enjoyed working with Jay at Schroeder – a very upbeat and positive guy, great relationship with the divers. Best of luck in your next adventure Lash!
Jay Lerew is a “GEM” in every possible way. Great diving coach and fabulous person!
Does anyone have real stats about how many swimmers on the team had PR’s this season? That is the real measure of coaching ability, in my mind. Next is recruiting, as the top teams have the top recruits (in all sports). Losing three strong swimmers to the portal last year did some damage, so I’m just curious how the existing team performed relative to other teams. Did they have comparable PR’s across the team?? That would be enlightening. it won’t speak to the comments about her personality, but I think it would speak to her ability to develop swimmers.
I am sorry but I beg to differ. Club coaches measure time drops. The measure for a DI coach is how swimmers swim at conference championships and how many swimmers get to NCAA. My this measure, the Texas A&M men swimmers were close to last in the SEC in 2026. They only qualified 1 swimmer for NCAA. Worst performance in decades. You may say that she lost 3 key performers off last year’s team and that affected their performance. I would agree, but that’s on Blare too. Something is wrong when you can’t keep your best swimmers in the program. Then she goes and fires (excuse me, you don’t have a job because we now only have one diving coach… Read more »
I don’t disagree Swimbilly. I’m just saying that very few coaches are gonna develop lesser swimmers into NCAA qualifying swimmers. You simply have to get the best recruits from the start (yes, that is a major job of the HC). My only point was that lots of the current swimmers got PRs this season (I think), so that that speaks to some ability to coach and develop.
I think it’s quite possible that the three swimmers who left were angry about the way TAMU treated their coach (Jay Holmes) and were expressing their displeasure by leaving, which had nothing to do with Blaire.
That’s not why they left. They each had very individual reasons.
I think the missing link is developing boys and girls into Men and Women. The previous coaches were experts at that. Aggie culture requires adult thinking and the current roster has very little of that. The coaches have promoted a cutthroat internal environment with very little comroardarie. There is no sense of team or pride in being part of something bigger than themselves. Many of the swimmers are very immature and lack the ability to see beyond their limited bubble, not everyone listens to gospel music…
Very poor take, Blake. Do you know the current roster? I know many on the current roster, and throwing those individuals under the bus because of a disliking of the coach is wrong. The roster is littered with great people that have “adult thinking”. Jay Holmes is a great man, but the roster before Blaire had plenty of problems. The current roster is arguably more team oriented with a better culture. Again, Jay is a great man, so I’m not saying anything negative about him.
Without getting too far Into it, I have a very personal understanding of the roster. I have quite a few horror stories that I could share but will keep them to myself. My greatest hope is that the culture changes though leadership. That position is void currently.
Blaire puts her heart and soul into the program and cares deeply about the program and the athletes. To slander her otherwise is a huge misjudgment.
Mane many of her athletes performed at a high level due to her influence and interest in them as people.
She walked in to a program that had layers of issues of accountability and talk about the task of combining a program, with an alumni base that already predetermined they don’t like you.
I can’t imagine the women and men at UVA have mostly amazing things to say about her leadership and guidance.
Plus none of her recruiting classes have even set foot on campus; give the woman a chance, she dealing with… Read more »
People in the athletic department there don’t really have a lot of nice things to say about Blaire. And I’m not talking about long time people who might be loyal to old coaches. I’m talking about people who have to deal with her. Respectful or nice are not words that come up regarding her.
She doesn’t want the help and/or support from the Alumni. That’s painfully obvious. The best help we can offer now is pitch in for whatever her buyout is. I’m happy to help with that endeavor. Unfortunately Blaire has no clue how to build a culture. I’m not even sure she recognizes the importance of it. She just simply is the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time. She doesn’t belong here.
The Jays and Steve knew what a winning culture looked like. Winning is tough and the A&M aquatics program was good and well respected with the previous regime.
I wish it was different but she’s just bad. The worst part is that the AD… Read more »
Time for Blair to go. It was a good experiment.
Bring back Calanog and hire Jake Gibbons top notch people and real Aggies to right the ship.
so is this Jason or Jake?
I’d tell you if it was me lol
The pizza scene has definitely improved in College Station, do it!
It was a TERRIBLE experiment. These are STUDENT ATHLETES! She has treated them horribly!
It sure seems like maybe you feel like YOU (or maybe one of your kids?) were treated horribly. I’ve spoken with other current swimmers who don’t say they’re being treated horribly
So some have and some haven’t. What’s your point? Because YOU spoke to some, then that speaks for all? I don’t think that is how it works.
My response was to “FormerAggie” who said that Blaire has treated STUDENT ATHLETES horribly, without being specific, so it sort of implies ALL of them. My point, “Yo Mama” was that if you think you or your child have been treated horribly, that can definitely color your opinion and cause you to possibly extend it beyond your experience. No, my speaking to some does not speak for all and that’s the point I was trying to make – “FormerAggie” also isn’t speaking for all.
You are not speaking to many swimmers! It is not good.
She heavily favors some athletes… everyone else does get treated horribly.
Aggie Cornhusker AD Trev Albert’s hired her and she ran Jay Holmes a lifer out of town and fired the world class diving coach so she could hire another swimming coach. After begging him to stay.
She took a women’s program under Bultman that got 2nd one year and was perennially top 10, and insulted Jay Holmes who in his last season had the team right outside of the top 10 ready to jump up to 5-7 with the arrival of Matt King. Two years later she has destroyed both programs and she wonders why?
This is on the AD as he betrayed Nebraska so why wouldn’t he not do so again?
The head of the programs, Blair, is… Read more »
More than unqualified – she is heartless and a mere follower of the AD, not a leader
Can’t speak to the “heartless” comment – I didn’t get that vibe when speaking with her. She seems very fervent not just about the swim program, but about A&M in general. Seemed to hate having to make roster limit cuts, and actually kept a cut swimmer or two on with the program as managers so as not to lose them.
As to “she ran Jay Holmes a lifer out of town”? No, absolutely not – TAMU did that when they didn’t immediately offer the Executive Director position to Jay. Jay announced his retirement 10 days after TAMU announced the hire of Blaire.
“Unqualified”? Well … she was at UVA for seven years, was elevated to asst head coach, was involved… Read more »
I can speak to the heartless comment with firsthand knowledge. She is. That’s all there is to it. Too long to go into detail here, but she is perhaps the most heartless person I’ve ever met. As for her being unqualified….Well let’s just let the results of the last two years speak for themselves. Regression not progression. The Jay Holmes situation did likely have more to do with the AD not offering Jay H. the job that was rightfully his to begin with. Can’t blame “coach” for that one. It’s also not Blaire’s fault that she’s unqualified and that she was offered the position. That again falls on our AD, Mr. Alberts. This experiment has failed in a historic fashion.… Read more »
Just because you are a good assistant doesn’t mean you will make a great head
Blaire wasn’t “an assistant” at UVA – she was associate head coach starting in 2021, which is when UVA’s NCAA women’s championship run started. Recruiting coordinator for much of her time at UVA. It really is just plain silly to say Blaire is unqualified, regardless of whether or not you think she is doing a good job.
Where are the results? They had one swimmer that qualified for NCAA. Mark my word, next year won’t be much better. They are in a death spiral.
I like Jay Holmes and I think TAMU did him wrong, but if you’re going to compare Jay Holmes and Blaire Anderson – how many NCAA team swimming championships was Jay Holmes ever involved in? ZERO in 38 years of coaching at TAMU. How many NCAA team swimming championships has Blaire Anderson been involved in? FOUR in 7 years of coaching at UVA. It seems like she MIGHT be the most qualified swim coach A&M has ever had. As far as Blaire not knowing how to establish culture – do a little research about what happened at UVA. Todd DeSorbo brought her on when he accepted the head job, and they spent a lot of time brainstorming culture. They were… Read more »
The arrival of Matt King? What do you know
Wow. Most of the comments on THIS story didn’t age well at all, in light of the followup story on SwimSwam about Coach Lerew RETIRING (he’s apparently 73 – he MAY be ready to fish and spend time with his family). Blaire had positively glowing things to say about Coach Lerew and the diving program at TAMU.
I am an Aggie (class of ’87) and it is fairly clear that Coach Anderson got dropped into the middle of an absolute “poop storm” which was of TAMU’s making. She did NOT fire Jay Holmes and anyone saying so has not even read the articles on the topic on this very website.
Here is a recap of the relevant timeline:
Jan. 29,… Read more »
Yep. Pretty much.
Since you seem to think you know everything, you missed a great deal between April and her hiring in May. You missed that the job was offered to at least three other coaches who turned it down. You should ask why? Then, Trev fired or reassigned several people that were on the Selection Committee. Again, you should ask why? Did they believe that A&M should pursue the best coaches like they did in football? Or were they told we are not investing in swimming and they disagreed with that decision. Again, you should ask why? This has been a cluster from the start. They didn’t really pursue coaches that had proven they could win. Trev thought, “we’re A&M, you should… Read more »
I absolutely do NOT know everything, and I tried to keep my timeline to published information. Your point seems to be that Blaire Anderson hasn’t proven that she knows how to win – really? She came to TAMU straight off of being associate head coach for a team that won four straight (six now) NCAA women’s titles.
Could it be Blare was the reason the swimmers left the program?
Of course that is possible, but it does not jive with what her swimmers at UVA had to say about her, meaning, she SEEMS to know how to conduct successful coaching relationships with athletes she is training
They FORCED him to retire.
Both Jays were forced into retirement. Our team knew Blaire was going to be our coach long before the portal closed. She cut half of our team AFTER the portal closed giving those swimmers nowhere to go.
I can’t speak to the decisions to cut swimmers, but she couldn’t really cut swimmers BEFORE the portal closed, since she wasn’t announced as the head coach until AFTER the portal closed. It’s certainly legit to question Blaire’s decisions about who to cut, but if she’s the head coach, those ARE her decisions to make. You have to blame TAMU for the timing of it, tho
Wow. Watching A&M struggle in the SEC and NCAA was hard enough, but this news is the final straw. It’s incredibly disappointing to see the direction this program is headed under the new staff….