SwimSwam sat down with Rachel Stratton-Mills, the Director of Swimming & Diving at Northwestern and the new President of the CSCAA Board of Directors.
Northwestern had a promising season this year, especially on the men’s side, which saw them place 4th at the B1G conference champs and score a relay at the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2008. Stratton-Mills discusses the development of her team as their 3rd-year leader and is hopeful that there’s much more to come.
On the CSCAA side of things, the new president sheds light on the reasons changes were made this year to the NCAA Championship format and why specific changes were implemented, such as eliminating B-Finals and adding a new diving format for finals. Stratton-Mills recognizes that not all these changes were hits, but also talks us through how the new CSCAA NCAA DI Working Group of coaches is moving forward with more meaningful change to the NCAA Championships format.
In the SwimSwam Podcast dive deeper into the sport you love with insider conversations about swimming. Hosted by Coleman Hodges and Gold Medal Mel Stewart, SwimSwam welcomes both the biggest names in swimming that you already know, and rising stars that you need to get to know, as we break down the past, present, and future of aquatic sports.
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Music: Otis McDonald
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Opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the interviewed guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the hosts, SwimSwam Partners, LLC and/or SwimSwam advertising partners.
This lady is the bomb – She knows what she is talking about and should be the highest decorated coach. Look for her to start shocking the swimming world with her knowledge, insight and brilliance. A real comer for sure!
Seem like Northwestern knows what they’re doing. Been watching B1G 10s over the years and Northwestern has shown the most improvment by far since I’ve started following.
Let’s go Cats!!
I was a parent in the stands–I didn’t need to be educated any better. Me understanding the changes did NOT make the meet any better. Morning relays (except top 8) and no B finals for individual events was simply a huge fail. I look forward to seeing a better product next year.
I was surprised at her statement. Didn’t seem like they really knew what they were doing in a sense. Poor plan all together.
I think they were really looking to change the meet in a way that would be appealing to ESPN and banking on a wider reach and audience having a positive impact on college swimming as a whole. What they did ended up being extreme, but at least now that is getting fixed.
As Rachel said, this was just a dry run to show ESPN what it could look like, which I don’t think most viewers realized (hence “dead air time” when they were playing reruns of old NCAA races). Important to realize that this is uncharted territory for everyone involved – swimming has never done this. The sport and everyone in it is figuring it out as they go.… Read more »
any real numbers from ESPN on viewership this year compared to 2025
Speak on this??
Stratton-Mill does. Listen to the interview 🙂
Northwestern’s team culture and upward momentum really came through in this interview. It’s exciting to see a program with athletes who clearly buy into the vision, support each other, and are building something special together.
Glad to see you all interviewing the CSCAA president. I can’t seem to find any record of you guys interviewing Arthur about it in the past two years, but clearly the CSCAA is going to have a big say in college swimming moving forward. Rachel seems like a great leader for this, level headed and to the point, clearly already doing well having a task force in place of well respected coaches to figure out the best NCAA format moving forward.
I actually spoke to Arthur about this specific topic last year at NCAAs. They had just had a coaches meeting where changes to the NCAA format were discussed. IDK which changes were specifically proposed at that meeting, but the CSCAA has been thinking about this and trying to tackle the problem for a while.
https://youtu.be/DcwuPrV4lNk?si=eCj96T3o9ZO_6RAI
Insufferable
0/10 ragebait