Two months after leaving South Bend for Palo Alto, Chris Lindauer, the Paul A. Violich Director of Women’s Swimming at Stanford University, is building his team. Stanford announced today that his first hire is Annie Lazor, who will come on board as associate head coach.
“I’m incredibly honored and grateful to join the Stanford family and this incredible group of women,” Lazor said. “I want to extend my sincere thanks to Chris, Richard Zhu, and the Stanford administration for their trust and support. It’s an immense privilege to be a part of one of the most storied and successful programs in NCAA history and I’m excited to contribute to its continued tradition of excellence. Go Card!”
Lindauer, the former head coach at Notre Dame, was hired by Stanford in May to replace Greg Meehan, who left to become the USA Swimming National Team Director after 13 years at the helm of the Stanford women’s team. Meehan further reduced the Cardinal women’s coaching staff by taking assistant coach Kim Williams with him to Colorado Springs.
A U.S. Olympian who won the bronze medal in the 200 breast at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Lazor spent the last two years as Assistant Coach of Men’s and Women’s Swimming at the University of Florida. There, she worked primarily with the women’s team who placed 3rd at the 2024 NCAA Division I Championships and 6th at the 2025 NCAA Division I Championships. During her two seasons in Gainesville, the Gators won the SEC Championships in 2024 and were runners-up to Texas in 2025.
Lazor brings a wealth of swimming experience to Stanford. She swam collegiately for Auburn from 2013-2016 and was a four-time All-American in the 100 breast, 200 breast, and 400 medley relay. She was a USA Swimming National Team member (2015-2017, 2018-2024) and represented Team USA at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, 2022 World Championships, 2022 Short Course World, and 2018 Short Course Worlds. In addition to her Olympic bronze medal, she won gold in the 200 breast at 2018 SC Worlds and silver in the 200 medley relay at 2022 SC Worlds. She also won 3 golds at the 2019 Pan American Championships (100 breast, 200 breast, 400 medley relay).
Lazor’s departure from Florida leaves the Gators with no women coaches on the swimming and diving staff – they had parted ways with Kristen Murslack in April. Florida head coach Anthony Nesty praised Lazor, writing, “We’re incredibly grateful for everything Coach Lazor has brought to our program. Her dedication, leadership and passion for developing our student-athletes has made a lasting impact. Happy for Annie and wish her the best as she starts this new chapter!”
Stanford is coming off a stellar 2024-25 season. The Cardinal women were runners-up to the 4x defending champion Virginia Cavaliers, edging Texas in the race for 2nd place by 23 points. Stanford had 3 individual NCAA champions (Torri Huske, Caroline Bricker, and Lucy Bell) and 1 relay win (800 free relay). The Cardinal return 76.7% of their individual points (197), which is more points than any team in the country besides UVA, and a higher percentage than any other team in the top 4.
I wonder why no experienced coaches apply for these posts
As a relatively experienced coach (15 years), I can give you a few reasons why a job like this wouldn’t appeal to me:
-Moving. I like where I live. I love Palo Alto too but, I have no family ties there.
-Experienced coaches are more likely to have significant others who are experienced in their own fields.
-Experienced coaches are more likely to have kids and families.
-A coach with 10+ years of experience can probably find a comparable club job that allows for significantly more work/life balance than a D1 coaching gig, which has been described me to as “way beyond full time”.
A job like this is really only appealing to someone with serious ambitions… Read more »
Annie about to take Lucy Bell to the next level.
This aged extremely well btw
Hopefully this comes with a hefty pay increase. I believe she was paid very little at Florida.
Seems like the only way to keep people in Florida these days is to surround them with a moat filled with gators…something is definitely off in Gainesville.
They probably aren’t paying all the assistants much money. Simple as that.
Assoc HC at Stanford probably pays DOUBLE what a line asst at UF makes (though Annie might spend all of that on Bay Area housing)
Don’t they get free in campus housing?
In theory yes but there’s a waitlist for it so it’s no guarantee that you’ll get it
A wait-list for coaches to get housing? Haha wow, that sucks! I would say shame on UF, but I bet nearly every university restricts funds in weird ways.
Its not just coaches, its professors too
Weird to mention this when you’re talking about someone going from a lower tier assistant position to an associate HC for a team that just finished second in the country. Who wouldn’t leave for that kind of opportunity? There’s other departures that you can scratch your head at, but this shouldn’t be one of them.
And here I thought they’d struggle after Meehan left, they’re gonna do just fine 😅
why all the down votes for anyone saying Annie’s a great hire??
As usual, I don’t have data to answer your question, but some suggestions:
-Cal fans
-Alabama fans
-Tree haters
-General haters
-Florida swimmers who are going to miss her
-Her 7th grade boyfriend
-People who are sad at the loose indication that this means Katie Robinson might not be retained
-People who don’t like the state of California
-People who think Palo Alto is too expensive
-Other people who applied for the job
-Stanford fans who were hoping for a more experienced coach
Whatever the case, I don’t think passively disagreeing with a hire being a ‘great hire’ is really that noteworthy in a semi-professional sporting landscape.
Thank you…I am laughing at some of these out loud, especially the tree haters & 7th grade boyfriend, and the Palo Alto is too expensive peeps!
There are SO MANY “Palo Alto is too expensive” people ong.
People are obsessed with the cost of living in expensive cities. This is not related to swim message boards, but people straight up don’t believe me when I tell them that a couple of years ago I was able to live relatively comfortably in NYC making less than $40,000. Granted NYC has more municipal services than a lot of California cities.
I think part of it is people who live in relatively boring places trying to justify their choices by saying cost of living in whatever city is astronomical
Burn the trees! Jk Palo Alto is nice, and the campus is beautiful. Curious, why Alabama fans?
She swam at Auburn.
Are Bama fans so cut throat they don’t want anyone that even went to auburn to ever be successful? If so thats incredible, I would like to experience that level of petty in person.
I didn’t downvote it and just to clarify, I’m a Bama fan. However, Bama fans will do crazy stuff when it comes to Auburn. Example 1: Harvey Updyke
Alabama native here: yes. They absolutely are. And it’s the same for Auburn fans feelings about Alabama fans.
She swam at Texas while you were at A&M…how can you forget! 😉
We’re talking about Annie, not Katie.
(Right?)
dad did a funny
Good hire (I’m willing to take the down votes) but associate head at Stanford is pretty good for her with such limited experience.
How does an assistant swim coach make ends living in Palo Alto?
People are obsessed with the cost of living in Palo Alto. It’s like some of y’all think that nobody actually lives in California.
It’s not a glamorous lifestyle, but neither is the life of the average bottom-rung assistant anywhere. Housing is getting more and more expensive in most big college towns. Median rent in Gainesville is $1600. $19,000 in rent out of a $36k-$40k salary (pretax) is not any more manageable than $30,000 in rent out of $90k-$107k at Stanford (the listed target salary for this job on the job posting). The school also offers below-market rentals for full-time staff members, which an assistant coach would appear to qualify for.
The climb up the ladder of collegiate coaching is not… Read more »
Camps
Yes, and camps.
That salary after taxes? I think decent rentals are more. And I don’t think the on campus housing is for assistant coaches. Meehan didn’t get in it his first year! There is a waiting list for coaches and professors!
a
Meant to leave this above but wasnt possible to edit once my fat fingers got done with it:
A less than 5 min search shows a number of places in East Palo Alto on par with comp places in Athens and all of them are closer to Stanford than my house in Athens is to UGA…
Paying double what one was for housing but making triple is always a win
She is probably making well over $100,000 and also I believe gets a housing stipend. That’s super easy to find something in that budget that is fairly decent if not very nice.
How does anyone make ends living anywhere? I’m sure she makes decent money and has money before she got hired. She’ll be fine
Note that if you read the article and the headline, you will discover she hasn’t been hired as “assistant swim coach” but “associate head coach.” That might make a difference in the salary. Also see other comments. Plus, it’s not your problem, is it?
I think Annie knows it’s expensive, as does Stanford. She didn’t take the job not knowing. She’ll be alright and be able to eat in a nice spot.
happy for Annie!! Sad for Emma Weyant