University of Alabama head swim coach Margo Geer received a new three year contract on Monday after approval by the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees. The new deal is worth $180,000 annually and will run through the 2027-2028 season.
That is a 12.5% raise from her prior three year deal, which was scheduled to run through 2026 and included a base salary of $160,000 annually.
The 2025-2026 season will be Geer’s fifth season in charge of the Crimson Tide, meaning that the program is almost entirely made up of swimmers that were recruited by her and her coaching staff. She took over the job in the 2021-2022 season after her former boss, and coach, Coley Stickels left the program mid-season during the 2020-2021 season.
The new contract comes after a rebound year that saw both the Crimson Tide men and women record significantly better NCAA Championship finishes than they did the year prior.
Alabama Swimming & Diving NCAA Championship Finishes Under Margo Geer
- 2021: Men 15th, Women 5th
- 2022: Men 14th, Women 4th
- 2023: Men 19th, Women 14th
- 2024: Men 19th, Women 23rd
- 2025: Men 13th, Women 15th
The men’s team finish was the second-best finish at the NCAA Championships by a female head coach, one spot behind Texas A&M. The Alabama women’s team was the third-highest finish by a team with a female head coach behind Texas (#3) and USC (#11).
Both Alabama teams also finished 6th at the SEC Championship meet in 2025.
Alabama was Geer’s first paid swim coaching job, following a long career as an international-level swimmer and a brief stint as a volunteer assistant at Alabama.
Geer, now 33, remains one of the youngest NCAA head swimming & diving coaches for an NCAA Championship-scoring program.
The school also approved new contracts for six other coaches: head baseball coach Rob Vaughn, head women’s basketball coach Kristy Curry, men’s basketball assistants Brian Adams and Chris Fleming, women’s head tennis coach Jonatan Berhane, and the school’s new women’s head rowing coach Kumari Lewis.
Having been a member on the team for the end of Denny’s tenure, then the mess we had to endure with Coley, I also saw Margo become the Head Coach. Here are my thoughts:
1 – she may have been labeled as a volunteer coach here, but do not be mistaken, she never coached.
2 – yes, she is a woman, and Greg seemed hell bent on hiring a female regardless. He admitted he knew nothing about the sport, and therefore rushed his hiring process of both Coley and Margo. Margo was named on the same day Coley was let go. It took all of us by surprise!
3 – with Margo, what you see is what you… Read more »
Very. Well. Said.
excellent thoughts. Thanks for sharing
You had “no issues with her personality,” but you found Margo uninspiring, awkward, dull, disorganized (James and Ozzie had to carry her workload), and taciturn/inept. Coley was an overall jerk. Greg was incapable of making any reasonable decision due to his own inadequacies- Sounds like you might be hard to impress? Who then, would you recommend given your astute observations?
You can have no issues with someone’s personality and still believe they’re unfit to be a head coach. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive – uninspiring, awkward, dull and disorganized don’t make you a bad person, but they make you a bad head coach.
The aforementioned adjectives used to describe Margo are inextricably tied to her personality. Those traits do not describe a flattering picture, nor are they fitting for a HC role.
What I hear you saying is that a young coach with no coaching experience had issues in her first couple of years. That’s fair. What also may be fair is that she has learned on the job. By all accounts she is an intelligent person. It would make sense that she may have gotten better over the course of the last five years. I don’t know if Alabama will ever be a consistent top five team under her, but especially in today’s world being in the top 15 isn’t a bad place to be.
Those of us that are competitive in nature prefer not to “settle” as you are suggesting.
I’m not asking anyone to settle. Being a top five team is really hard to do. There are lots of good coaches in college swimming who aren’t in the top five team standings at the end of the year. And NIL and the transfer portal has made the game of college coaching tougher, or at least very different, than it used to be. I’m concerned the gap between the haves and the have nots may widen. So hiring a young coach, which already happened, and watching her grow and being a top 15 team now is not a bad place to be. Just suggesting the investment in Margo and renewing her contract isn’t a bad move.
When you get ready for the eye roll resulting from the comments about how bad a coach she is and how she should be fired, and realize the comments are fairly positive. Some people are on vacation or people have realized she might be able to coach. Congrats to Margo on a new contract.
Meh, she’s doing alright because she surrounded herself with some pretty solid coaches. That said, their men are about to take a hit losing some star power, and recruiting across the board has been sub-par for a potential top10 program both men and women
Isn’t part of being a good coach hiring and taking advice fromthe best possible group of assistant/associate coaches you can?
I mean thats kind of the bare minimum in this case, I hope for her sake the coaches she hires respect her. Personally if I was coaching for 15-20 years I’m not sure if I would respect her being above me. Jury is out on whether she’s actually a good coach though. Maybe Coleman could get a practice and pancakes so we can see her coach
We can try! For years, Alabama had a “no contact with SwimSwam” policy, but maybe that’s thawed out a bit.
Would honestly love to see more, always found the concept interesting. I do hope for a little more talking with athletes and coaches, sometimes it feels like they say ok but then out Coleman in the corner haha. Also weird that any team wouldn’t want swimswam around, free publicity, and they currently have an athlete vlogging a little so what’s there to hide?
She coached the 13th place team. Why does it matter that she coached the 2nd place team that was coached by a woman? I am sure she wants to be measured and paid in comparison to how good get teams are
Good call out. It sounds impressive until you realize how few women head coaches there are
worth a 12.5% raise?
Cost of living increase from 2021 to 2025 was approximately 18%, so I wouldn’t consider it a merit raise.
A big part of that is losing Rhyan White, whose main coach was Ozzie Quevedo, anyway. She’s a hard one to replace especially for a program like the Bama women who, during White’s time, was at their peak in large part because of her. Their women’s sprint program has stayed pretty relevant since.
There was for sure some turmoil after she was first hired with coaching changes and transfers, but she seems like she’s settled things down and gotten some good results recently.
My impression is that she is a smart and listening person.
Something that I hope coaches realize is that when negotiating a contract you hold a pretty big hand simply due to the fact that it is such a royal pain in the rear to hire a new coach. Asking for a bigger raise is a completely acceptable response and indicates you value yourself enough to ask for it, that’s a positive.
That applies to any profession btw, no one ever gets fired for asking for a raise or a bigger raise. It just takes courage
Well deserved!
Why the downvotes?
Auburn fans.
Of course! The premiere college in the state.