Longtime LSU swim coach Dave Geyer has resigned from his position as head swimming coach, an LSU press release announced this afternoon. Geyer recently concluded his 16th season with the Tigers, and his 11th as head coach. Prior to becoming head swim coach, Geyer served for 5 seasons as an assistant coach.
Speaking on the matter, LSU Athletics Director, Scott Woodward, says “I want to thank Dave for his dedication and commitment to LSU for 16 years.” Woodward added “Coach Geyer represented LSU with class and made countless contributions to our athletics program – both in and out of the pool. Coach Geyer will always be a valued member of the LSU community, and I wish him well in his future endeavors.”
Over the course of his head coaching career with LSU, Geyer’s swimmers have broken 69 program records. Most recently, Geyer coached sprint star Brooks Curry to an SEC title in the 100 free and 200 free runner-up finish in 2020. This past season, Curry finished 2nd in the 100 free at SECs, and earned 3rd-place finishes in the 50 and 200 freestyles.
During Geyer’s first season as head coach (2010-2011), LSU had their first women’s NCAA All-Americans since 1997, with both Amanda Kendall and Jane Trepp earning All-America honors. Kendall went on to qualify for the U.S. Pan American Games roster following that season.
Geyer, speaking on his decision says “I never imagined that my career would stay at one place this long.” He went on to say that “With a lot of thought and consideration I have decided to resign from my position as head coach. There have been a lot of hurdles along the way, but I walk away knowing I did everything I could to elevate the standard of this program moving forward. I am excited for the opportunities that lay ahead for me and my family.”
LSU has consistently qualified swimmers to NCAAs while Geyer has been at the helm, although they’ve been been unable to break into the top of the SEC as a team. At the 2021 SEC Championships, LSU finished 10th out of 12 women’s teams, and 9th out of 10 men’s teams. The highest the men’s and women’s teams finished at SEC over the past 11 years was 5th. The Tigers men took 5th in consecutive seasons (2011 & 2012), while the women’s team took 5th in 2011, 2012, and 2015.
Who are the top candidates to replace Dave Geyer at LSU article coming soon?
I thoroughly enjoyed the comments section. Primarily, Mr. Cavics – REAL talk!
LSU alums seem very bitter, perhaps more so than the Auburn bitterness after the Gary Taylor announcement. At no point in the comment section did any LSU “swammer” provide a solution or anything remotely positive. If your experience was THAT bad, perhaps it is time to look in the mirror! This is a bad look for LSU alums. From the outside here in ACC country, I cringe at the needless hatred spewed out by some of you.
One thing is for sure, wherever Geyer lands next, I will be cheering BIG TIME for his success.
I disagree, the athletes shouldn’t be the ones to provide solutions. The administration should be protecting these athletes and fostering their growth. I respect the athletes who shared their thoughts in the comments because it was their experience. From what I understand is, you didn’t go through it. Meaning you don’t know if they are right or wrong.
Can you read?
Several solutions were provided
Can you read? I’m not saying there weren’t solutions provided, I am saying it shouldn’t be their responsibility! A student athletes dream is to love the program they selected and to have administrators support/protect/honor them in every way.
Former LSU swimmer here….LSU needs someone with:
In my opinion, the best person for the HC job is Steve Mellor. He’s coached multiple people to NCAA’s and has a phenomenal connection with LSU studs currently on the team. Steve Mellor as HC and Lyle Robelot as his assistant, would be a lethal duo.
I will despair if LSU brings in a random coach from a worse team than LSU. We need a coach from a power conference eg the SEC, Big 10, PAC 12, ACC etc. LSU football wouldn’t hire the head coach from “Small Town U”… Read more »
Steve Mellor was as toxic as Dave Geyer and they need to have a fresh start with a new head coach. He is no way a leader replacement.
No offense, but the only people that didn’t like Steve were trash swimmers. Because he demands another level of work that your average swimmer can’t handle. Its not a coincidence that every top swimmer that has come out of LSU has been coached by Steve. He was the only reason lsu stayed at a relatively competent level. He’s literally taking the fastest guy in LSU history to trials this year.
I completely agree. Steve Mellor has consistently proven to be one of the top coaches in the country, but has not received the credit as he was not the head coach. Adding on to the statement above, Steve has been the one to coach almost all of the NCAA qualifiers LSU swimming has produced. He is constantly looking for what is best for his swimmers and it is one of his greatest qualities. On the other side of things, Steve aims to form a deep connection with his swimmers. I believe a coach-athlete relationship should be formed with great respect (on both sides) and Steve consistently does this. Furthermore, Steve establishes a strong and direct line of communication with the… Read more »
Scott Woodward cleaned house for a reason. He would not have done so over a few disgruntled swimmers. There was clearly a widespread issue throughout the program that ultimately led to the resignation of Geyer and the termination of Steve Mellor. Bringing back the Associate Head Coach of a failing program that he has been a part of for the last decade would be a completely irrational decision.
This is the SEC and LSU we’re talking about. I find it hard to believe that they struggled to bring in strong recruiting classes that were capable of making the team somewhat relevant in the SEC.
Bottom line: If coaches are incapable of putting together a good team at LSU… Read more »
Just because Dave failed to lead the program doesn’t mean the two guys that were literally keeping the team afloat should be let go.
I did my 4 years on LSU swim. Dave cared more than anyone about keeping people safe. And responded appropriately when people didn’t respect him. I personally can’t fault his character or his virtue.
Coaching wise, he was stuck in his ways, there were a few instances were new ideas and fresh input was brought to his attention by staff and swimmers, only to be dismissed. If you want to be top of the SEC you need to be innovators. Not only that but you need to listen to your hard-working athletes and TRUST their advice. You’re not taking full advantage of your huge numbers of international athletes if you aren’t going to listen to their knowledge on how to… Read more »
As a former assistant to Dave, I’m sad to hear this happened and that I took the bait in responding here, but here are the facts:
- He is a family man that cares for his swimmers and during my short time there, he treated everyone as the adults that they were and with respect. If you chose to go drinking the night before, skipped practice, failing classes, or came back to school out of shape and over weight, Dave and Steve would make sure you understood the facts and what the team’s goals were. Not everyone appreciates the facts or facing reality. I suspect some of them are the ones barking here in the comment section.
- If you’re
… Read more »Thank you for posting your opinion. My Class of ‘22 swimmer has LSU among others on the radar. I try not to give too much importance to some posts that seem to be written by someone with an agenda. There are always two sides.
An “assistant” view is going to be VERY different than the views and opinions of the swimmers. The only opinions that matter are that of the athletes, not a coach who is too comfortable in his position to think about the consequences of his actions.
Interesting opinion. Although your 1-2 year career there doesn’t invalidate many swimmers 4 year careers there. You mentioned the transfer rate, but how about the rate of swimmers who just straight up quit. I’d venture to say that’s pretty high.
LSU women rank 50th nationally and men 69th nationally in atrition rank on swimswam’s math. I don’t really know what goes into that, but, that’s not really that awful. Certainly in the top half. Better than NC State, Michigan, similar to missouri, Texas…
https://swimswam.com/swimulator/?type=programs&gender=Women&division=D1&conference=All
Look, the staff is gone, they’re history. What you and @tiger15, @lsuswammer, @tigerpaw44, others, are doing is slandering a good man with a false hope that you’re hoping he’ll never coach again.
Let me tell you something about coaching: It takes most people many years to get noticed enough in their profession so that they could be invited to run or assist in a collegiate team, and before that day comes, you’ve been grossly underpaid, overworked, and under-appreciated. College (& club) coaching is hard on their families, let alone fielding phone calls all day and night. So, you’ll forgive them if they made you feel bad in pursuit of a greater standard. Dave Geyer needs to coach again, because people… Read more »
From the outside the honest truth is that coaching just isn’t cut out for everyone, some people have it and others don’t. From what I have read, some of their swimmers are speaking out about what happen behind closed doors and they are getting a lot of thumbs up so I can imagine it’s all their current swimmers and alumni agreeing.
Slandering a good man? If you choose to be a coach at a public school, welcome to public criticism buddy. No one is immune to being criticized if they didn’t do a great job at what they did. I really don’t need to defend any of my positions because you’re right, it’s history now.
Don’t defend yourself, but I wonder if you have enough conviction in your beliefs to say what your name is here? Anyone else in this thread? Anonymity is bush league.
Like I said, I don’t have to defend myself. The current administration agrees and I can sleep at night. I’m very excited about the direction the program is taking.
That’s a no lol
Being part of the program I will also agree that he cares deeply about his athletes and team. He lived to coach the team, build the club and make swimming bigger. While a young 18-22 year old who is at Tiger Land as many hours a week as they swim, it’s not exactly fair to call him out. Until the university invests in swimming at LSU and the in state swimming improves, it is going to be hard for LSU to ever compete at the highest level. If you want to talk stats, school records, graduation rates, etc. I think Dave accomplished those at a high level. I wish him and his family the absolute best and will be excited… Read more »
They should hire Amanda Kendall and take a page out of Bama’s play book with the hire of Geer…
Just kiddin.
Nice
About time they let him go. Zero communication skills who only cared about himself. He was lucky to have gotten this position in the first place and not held to its standards under Joe Alleva’s administration years as an AD. Hopefully Our program gets a head coach who actually cares about his swimmers now as much as our diving coach Doug cares about his divers! The Men’s Team will HIGHLY benefit from this.