Stanford women’s associate head coach Tracy Slusser is stepping down after 11 seasons with the program, the school announced Tuesday.
Slusser first joined the Cardinal in 2012, serving two seasons as an assistant coach before being promoted to associate head coach in 2014.
Thank you, Tracy, for elevating our program to an even higher level. All the best in your next chapter!#GoStanfordhttps://t.co/GlaZLISrN6
— Stanford Women’s Swim/Dive (@stanfordwswim) May 23, 2023
Slusser’s tenure on The Farm included leading the women to three consecutive NCAA titles from 2017 to 2019, along with seven Pac-12 championship titles, including five of the last six.
“It has been an absolute honor to lead this program for the past 11 seasons alongside Greg Meehan,” said Slusser. “I am humbled and proud of what we have accomplished together with so many amazing young women over the years. The friendships and memories will last far beyond my time on the pool deck.
“The Stanford Athletics community has been unwavering in showing their support for the program, as well as for me and my family over the years. We will continue to cheer on the Card from the stands.”
Greg Meehan, who has been the head women’s coach during the entirety of Slusser’s time at Stanford, lauded her for her contributions to the program.
“Tracy has been an amazing coach, mentor, colleague and friend for the last 11 years,” said Meehan. “Tracy poured her heart and soul into the Stanford Women’s Swimming and Diving program and embodied the tenets of Stanford Athletics: lead with courage; embrace scholar athleticism; work cohesively; and pursue and revere excellence.
“Tracy’s passion to make a difference in the lives of these young women is unmatched and they are all the better for it. While we will certainly miss her, we are excited for Tracy, Adam, Ivy and Jade as she moves into this next phase of her life. Thank you, Tracy!”
Although it’s not mentioned specifically, both Slusser and Meehan seem to indicate that she will not be pursuing a coaching role elsewhere. By stepping down, she creates a major associate coaching vacancy for next season on Stanford’s staff.
During Slusser’s time with the Cardinal, she helped transform the team into a modern dynasty, with the team’s historic three-peat beginning in 2017 the highlight. Stanford had eight top-three NCAA finishes overall during her 11 seasons.
Slusser played a primary role in Stanford’s recruiting and development, putting together numerous top-ranked recruiting classes and securing commitments from some of the best swimmers in the nation.
She also helped coach Stanford swimmers Maya Dirado, Simone Manuel and Lia Neal to a combined nine Olympic medals at the 2016 Games in Rio.
Slusser also served as the head coach of the U.S. women’s team at the 2019 World University Games, and was an assistant in 2017.
Prior to Stanford, Slusser spent time with two other top-tier swimming programs, spending one year as an assistant coach at Arizona and five at Texas A&M.
Prior to coaching, Slusser had an accomplished collegiate career at Purdue, earning CSCAA and Big Ten All-Academic honors and earning a bachelor’s degree in health promotion. In the pool, Slusser qualified for NCAAs three times, earning Honorable Mention All-America honors in the 200 and 400 free relays while becoming the first Boilermaker to break 23 seconds in the women’s 50 freestyle.
A native of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, Slusser and her husband, Adam, have two children, Ivy and Jade.
Is the family staying in the area? I think her husband is an engineer so maybe a job transfer? The best to Tracy on the next chapter/adventure!
A difficult void to fill. Would not be surprised to see one of the female Stanford swimming alumni come back to help coach the program… Dirado?
What makes alums the best choice to fill these positions? How many Stanford or Ivy League alums have great coaching careers? I think they have found their niche and make more money and don’t have to get up at 5:30 am!
Hiring alums normally doesn’t work….hire the most qualified. In this case, the person will have to live in the most expensive zip code in the country!
The cool thing is that this position would probably be eligible for Stanford Athletic’s very generous housing program. They built a whole neighborhood of houses for high-level Assistant and Head Coaches to live in near the campus a few years ago.
There is a years long wait list for that housing.
I botched my response to Lil Mosey please delete this comment if possible admins
Looks like it’s time for True Sweetser to reenter the swimming world as the new Stanford assistant. Kim Williams will have so much competition!
The wrong coach stepped down.
Love to bring this energy to the conversation
rare relay guy name W
The atmosphere on the Stanford Women’s swim team is incredible. Stanford is such a special place that combines elite athletics with elite education. There is no place that rivals them. Yes they finished 3rd place the last two years, but think about that for a second—not too shabby. Greg leads a program that truly allows young people to be students first and prepare for life after swimming. Combined with the best weather and best facilities in the country, Greg will be able to find a great coach to follow in the enormous void that Tracy opens with her turning the page in her life. Best wishes Coach Tracy—you will be missed!
Oh no! Another woman gone from coaching!
Yup. How are we supposed to get women coaching at the highest level, if highly thought of asst coaches get out of the business? Assuming that’s what she’s doing. Serious question.
No idea in Tracy’s case, but in the past there have been other highly qualified female assistants that applied for head coaching jobs who were passed over in favor of a male and then quit the profession because why carry on if you’re stuck as an assistant forever?
I think we have to be careful to not take an obvious problem (women in coaching) and extrapolate it to apply to every case.
Tracy and her husband weren’t leaving the Bay Area. If she wanted a D1 head coaching job, she would have had one. The only gig she would’ve taken probably would have been Cal, and it looks like Cal is satisfied with a combined program for now. Teri wasn’t going to let anyone who wasn’t her hand-picked assistant take over that spot anyway, even if she hadn’t burned the whole thing down.
Collegiate coaching is a crappy lifestyle, and it’s not for everyone. Bad hours, long hours, tons of moving.
Agreed, if she wanted a head job she have one, but it’s a shame to lose highly regarded coaches (asst or otherwise), especially female ones. Go on any pool deck and they are glaringly few, at all levels.
Correct. It’s a serious problem — just look at the recent research study SwimSwam shared. Representation matters, whether you agree or not, having women on deck matters for all the girls & women pursuing sport.
As nice as it would be to have more women on deck, I just don’t see where the needed money is going to come from to make significant headway on it. At the club level, this is already an expensive sport even with coaches for the most part not making all that much. And in college, the focus and money seems to only be shifting more towards revenue sports.
There’s no reason to expect lots of women to sign up for jobs that don’t pay well and require you to work virtually all of the hours that your own children are out of school and awake.
Agree. While you’re trying to be the best coach and human you can be to other people’s children, it’s hard to be there for your own kids and not sell them short.
Huh? Can’t the female coaches’ partners take on the more of the childcare responsibilities, like male coaches’ partners currently do?
Sure they can, and I’m sure some do. But as much as society is changing, that pivot still hasn’t fully happened and isn’t the norm. Regardless, that’s less of a problem for ‘swimming’ to solve and more of a problem for ‘society’ or ‘couples’ to solve, isn’t it?
Yes, but if one partner is going to continue to coach, the other’s income has to be pretty sizeable. That’s the issue. It’s the time and the money.
Unless of course that woman is Teri.
It stinks because she had publicly spoken about how much support she got from the Stanford Administration during/post-maternity. If she wasn’t able to stay on as a female coach, how much harder must it be for all of the club/high school/small program coaches who get next to no Maternity Leave or other support?
What if this is what she really wants? Why is that a bad thing? Coaching hours suck for anyone (men or women) with young kids.
For her personally it’s not necessarily a bad thing. When looked at in the context of college swimming it’s rough that one of the most successful female coaches has left the profession. There’s a ton of male coaches that have kids and they stay in the sport. She may very well have left for another reason, but the inability to keep women in the profession is a systemic problem.
People just can’t accept the fact that over time, coaching starts to really suck. I think Females as a whole grasp this sooner, or maybe just have a better ability to “let go” than Males do (or possibly have more options to do so). When you step back and objectively look at the poor work-life balance, long hours, recruiting shenanigans, etc it really has to be a passion to stay in the sport, and even then it might not be enough. I have lost count of how many FT swim coaches that I know who wish they could do something else. Personally for me (being Male) I stopped coaching shortly after my first child was born. I am not going… Read more »
I think it has more to do with the fact that many female coaches have less parenting support to fall back on than male coaches do.
Typical comment. If her husband is an engineer in this part of the country, it’s likely that he is not just clocking a typical 40 hour work week. Maybe he’s not available to help out more. Not everything can be explained by the male/husband bashing agenda of the day. Or heavens forbid, maybe she wanted to be home with her kids (**gasp**). My wife told me straight up before we were married, if we are having kids, then she was staying at home with them.
Interesting. Saw her last week at the TYR meet and everything seemed the same.
Did I actually comment here before the relay-names guy did?
useless