Dan Schemmel

Dan Schemmel is Stanford's Goldman Family Director of Men’s Swimming, beginning on May 14, 2019.

Through the 2023-24 season, Schemmel has led Stanford to NCAA top-eight team finishes the past three years. School records in 13 events -- nine individual and four relays -- have fallen under Schemmel, including three in 2024. In addition, 28 different swimmers and divers have earned All-America honors in Schemmel's Stanford tenure and six have been named Academic All-Americans.

Stanford owns a 22-5 dual-meet record (.815) under Schemmel, who is 17-2 (.895) at Avery Aquatic Center. Stanford went 12-0 at home from 2020-21 into 2023-24. 

 

In 2024, Stanford placed eighth at the NCAA Championships, second at the 2024 Pac-12 Championships and earned a dual-meet victory over rival Cal to close out the regular season. Two active Stanford swimmers, Ron Polonsky and Jonathan Tan advanced to the Paris Olympic Games, with Polonsky reaching the semifinals in the 100-meter breaststroke and 200 individual medley, placing 12th in the latter.  

In 2022-23, Stanford placed eighth at the NCAA Championships, with 11 earning All-America awards while the team also earned the best GPA among all Division I programs during the school year.

Senior Leon MacAlister was lauded as the Pac-12 Men's Swimming and Diving Scholar Athlete of the Year and was also named among four swimmers to the CSC Academic All-America teams.

In Schemmel's third season as head coach, Stanford finished undefeated in the regular season, was second at the Pac-12 Championships, and seventh at the NCAA Championships. 

During the 2021-22 regular season, the Cardinal amassed five top-25 wins, including a signature dual meet victory over eventual NCAA champion California. Schemmel guided the Stanford swimmers and divers to six conference individual titles and the Cardinal's first individual NCAA champion since 2017, with Andrei Minakov's victory in the 100 butterfly.

In 2021-22, Schemmel's athletes broke 10 Stanford records and brought home 14 All-America honors, while in 2020-21, the Cardinal went 1-1 in dual meets and took second in the Pac-12. Stanford placed 14th at NCAA's. 

In his first season as head coach, Stanford finished third at the Pac-12 Championships before the NCAA Championships were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thirteen swimmers and divers were named All-America with all relay teams earning the NCAA "A" standard. Twelve were named to the Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll while 13 were named Scholar All-America by CSCAA. 

Schemmel spent the previous three seasons as head coach of both the men’s and women’s programs at University of Hawai’i. The women won the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship each season while the men captured its first conference championship since 2006. Under his leadership, Hawai’i produced a 57 individual conference champions, 42 school records, 20 conference records and six All-Americans.

Prior to Hawai’i, Schemmel spent five seasons as an assistant coach at Wisconsin, where he coached 17 Big Ten Conference champions to nine Big Ten Conference records. He also spent the 2010-11 season as an assistant coach at Michigan State, his alma mater, and two seasons as a graduate assistant at Arizona (2008-10), where he earned his masters’ in educational psychology.

Schemmel has helped add to an impressive resume for Stanford's men's swimming and diving program. In 108 seasons, the Cardinal has captured eight national championships and 64 Pac-12 Conference championships, including 31 consecutive from 1982-2012. Individual swimmers and divers combined for 151 national championships and 376 conference championships, while seven former Cardinal were named to the Pac-12 All-Century team in 2016.

Schemmel is the sixth head coach in the history of the program, succeeding Ted Knapp, who served a combined 39 years on The Farm as a student-athlete, assistant coach, associate head coach and as the Goldman Family Director of Men’s Swimming from 2012-19.