Competitor Coach of the Month is a recurring SwimSwam feature shedding light on a U.S.-based coach who has risen above the competition. As with any item of recognition, Competitor Coach of the Month is a subjective exercise meant to highlight one coach whose work holds noteworthy context – perhaps a coach who was clearly in the limelight, or one whose work fell through the cracks a bit more among other stories. If your favorite coach wasn’t selected, feel free to respectfully recognize them in our comment section.
Greg Meehan‘s past, present and future Stanford women won half the events at the Indy Pro Swim Series, including a sweep of all the freestyle events.
Katie Ledecky was the heavy lifter, sweeping the 200 through 1500 with outstanding times across the board: 1:55.42/3:57.94/8:07.27/15:20.48, the final time being a new world record. Meanwhile Simone Manuel won the 50 (24.59) and incoming freshman Taylor Ruck the 100 (53.42). In fact, including Ruck in the mix, Stanford’s women went 1-3 in the 50 free, 1-2-5 in the 100 free and 1-2 in the 200 free. Add in a 200 back win (2:08.11) from Ruck, and Stanford-connected swimmers won 7 of the 14 women’s events. While Ruck, of course, hasn’t started her Cardinal career yet, we do like to note in these Coach of the Month discussions the work college coaches have done in recruiting, as recruiting becomes more and more important in the grand scheme of collegiate swimming.
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Greg: congratulations on winning the much-coveted “Competitor Coach of the Month” award. I hope it comes with a $250,000 check. That would be awesome!
And smaller checks for masters swimmers that, no doubt, have contributed to his success through mere proximity?
Every college swim team greatly benefits from having an active masters program using the same facilities. Masters swimmers put in and remove lane lines, cover and uncover, help work meets, sit in the stands and cheer, offer encouragement, donate money, sometimes provide coaching opportunities, and occasionally share job advice and contacts.
Greg Meehan is an awesome coach, and his Teams performances speak volumes about how he inspires and brings out the best in his Teams. I’m excited about Taylor Ruck joining the Cardinal Women Swim Team, But Taylor is currently Not coached by Meehan, and it is misleading to infer that Meehan was responsible for her current performances. You might have referenced the preliminary swims for both Drabot and Eastin, who Are coached by Meehan, and had some really exceptional preliminary times at Indy.
While this is a fair comment to make, it was Greg Meehan on social media that first claimed the freestyle sweep, not SwimSwam.
But I’m assuming he framed it as “Stanford swimmers,” not “swimmers I coach.” This article makes it sound like he deserves credit for Ruck’s swims.
He deserves credit for phenomenal recruiting (Ruck) in addition to his coaching (Ledecky, Manuel, et al).
While it is true that Ledecky swept the 200 to 800 free, most people would say she swept 200 to 1500.
Any coach that is currently coaching Ledecky will win coach of the month.