Stanford freshman Rex Maurer has entered the transfer portal after spending a season with the Cardinal. Maurer was the #1 ranked recruit coming out of high school.
Maurer helped the Stanford men to a 2nd place finish at the Pac-12 Championships as he was 3rd in the 500 free, 400 IM, and 200 backstroke. He swam his personal best time of a 3:38.10 at Pac-12s in the 400 IM.
He went on to earn an individual NCAA invite but did not earn a swim in finals. He finished 30th in the 400 IM (3:44.58), 31st in the 500 free (4:16.69), and 38th in the 200 back (1:43.00).
In addition to swimming individually, Maurer showed off his versatility and range as he led off Stanford’s 200 medley relay. He split a 21.02 on the backstroke leg helping then relay to a 7th place finish. The Stanford men finished 8th as a team overall at 2024 NCAAs.
Maurer’s fastest swims of the season came at midseasons as he swam his personal best times in the 500 free and 200 backstroke then. He also swam a 3:41.27 in the 400 IM which also marked a personal best until he swam faster at Pac-12s.
| PB before Stanford | PB at Stanford | |
| 500 free | 4:12.33 | 4:11.88 |
| 400 IM | 3:41.94 | 3:38.10 |
| 200 back | 1:42.30 | 1:39.75 |
Maurer’s older brother Luke Maurer has also entered the transfer portal. Luke just finished up his senior season and is in as a graduate transfer. The two are the sons of USC head coach Lea Maurer.
Rex Maurer represented the US last fall at the U23 Championships at the beginning of August. He finished 3rd in the LCM 400 freestyle swimming a personal best of a 3:47.63. That was faster than his 3:48.18 at 2023 US Summer Nationals that earned him a 5th place finish which was just over two seconds off of making the 2023 Worlds roster for the US.
Entering the transfer portal does not require an athlete to transfer. It instead allows for athletes to come in contact with other coaches about a potential change. On rare occasions, athletes enter the portal but stay with their original school.
Why don’t you look to see where he is currently training (Texas) and then make some judgments on what will happen? Stanford has fallen apart because of an incident that happened in late September 2022 when there was an assult by a swimmer on the team and the staff (coaches and AD) tried to sweep it under the rug. Not everyone on the team agreed that the guilty party should be left unpunished so there has been significant blowback to the swimmers who testified against the perpetrator causing a huge rift on the team. I know Swimswam won’t report or even ask about this because I have posted on here multiple times and nothing has been said. It is disgusting… Read more »
rex to IU and you heard it here first
Curious if Braden/SwimSwam have looked into NIL $ and college swimming as it relates to scholarships. There’s been a fair bit of talk in men’s college basketball recently about scholarship limits, from a practical perspective, being a thing of the past. Upper echelon programs can now legally funnel NIL money to kids (either the top prospects or even lower tier guys) to compensate them for the cost of a scholarship if one is not available. Obviously, college basketball and college swimming are apples and oranges, but I could see something similar happening in college swimming.
I’m sure it’s happening. In some sense, this has always been a thing in college sports, especially in swimming. There are lots of examples of NCAA Champions in swimming who have been on 0 scholarship dollars because of family wealth.
How many swimming scholarships does the University of Texas have to offer?
Stanford University, where swimmers abandon ship.
I think we can all agree this proves that Stanford is the same lame place it’s always been.
Somehow, Greg Meehan is at fault here…..
Everyone relax! He’s not leaving lol. He’s absolutely at his best under this exceptional coaching staff and despite the broken wrist he’s doing great. Who would throw a Stanford degree in the trash. Are you joking 🤣
…. “exceptional coaching staff”, huh?
Would not let go stanford degree.
Honestly not everyone is a scholar, which is fine. Sometimes, unbelievably to a lot of commenters here, swimmers go to college to be on the swim team. While academics can still very well, and very well should, be on the front burner, it’s understandable that swimmers choose a university *based* on the swim team, not academics. So, transferring usually implies that they’re unhappy with the swim team, and are willing to change that scene with the cost of exchanging a brilliant degree on their resume to one that isn’t *quite* as spectacular, in the name of swimming. For a serious swimmer (Rex was a 400m free finalist at 2022 Nats), swimming comes 1st, and academics comes 1st as well, but… Read more »