Northwestern Hires Rachel Stratton-Mills as Director of Swimming & Diving

Photo Courtesy: Arizona State University

Rachel Stratton-Mills has been hired as the Northwestern University head swimming coach.

“I am honored and excited to join Northwestern University as Director of Swimming & Diving. I have always admired Northwestern as an institution, and the opportunity to lead the finest student-athletes in the country is a dream come true,” Stratton-Mills said. “Northwestern swimming & diving is perfectly positioned to be champions in the pool while maintaining our world-class reputation for academic excellence. I want to thank Dr. Derrick Gragg and the entire search committee for their trust in my vision for this program. My family and I are so grateful to become a part of the Wildcat Family, and we can’t wait to get started.”

Katie Robinson has been the director of swimming and diving and left to take the Associate Head Coach job at Stanford when Tracy Slusser departed.

Stratton-Mills completed her sixth season with the Sun Devils in 2022-23. She joined the coaching staff in April 2017 and was elevated to Associate Head Coach of the Arizona State Swimming program by Coach Bowman in 2019.

Since arriving in Tempe, Stratton-Mills was part of one of the most successful eras of the Swimming & Diving program. Ten Sun Devil Women have earned All-American status at the NCAA Championships in Stratton-Mills’ Sun Devil tenure, highlighted by First Team All-American Cierra Runge, who won a Gold Medal at the 2016 Olympics.

Arizona State head coach Bob Bowman posted a congratulations message on social media.

“We had a great run @swimcoachrachel ! We are all going to miss you here in Tempe but we can’t wait to see you do great things as Head Coach @nuswimdive!! Thanks for everything you have done for @sundevilswimdive! (Also, I will still be annoying you with regularity albeit from afar so that part won’t change 😍) #soproud #excellence,” Bowman posted on Instagram.

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Prior to her stay at Arizona State, Stratton-Mills, who also has coaching stops at the University of Maryland and Dartmouth College on her resume, served as head coach of Asphalt Green United Aquatics from 2010-15. During her stay at the club, Stratton-Mills saw an athlete earn a spot on the 2012 United States Olympic Team, while a pair of athletes were named to the U.S. National Junior Team. She also served on staff for Team USA at both the Short Course World Championships and Junior World Championships.

Apart from her time on the collegiate and club levels, Stratton-Mills boasts coaching experience on the professional level, having spent the 2019 season with the D.C. Trident of the International Swim League, where she was part of one of the first all-female professional sport staffs in history.

A native of Los Gatos, Calif. who competed collegiately at UCLA, Stratton-Mills currently serves on USA Swimming’s Rules & Regulations Committee. She is also a member of a USA Swimming Safe Sport Task Force, which focuses on Safe Sport Regulations. Stratton-Mills holds a bachelor’s in sociology from UCLA and a master’s in liberal studies from Arizona State.

Robinson was the head coach of the Northwestern women and men’s combined program for the last three seasons after she was the associate head coach in Evanston, Ill., for the two years before that.

“My leaving Northwestern has nothing to do with the insane amount of belief I have in the program. Let is be clearly stated tht Northwestern’s best days are head! I love the heck out of our student-athletes – and future ‘Cats – and I will forever have NU in my heart, wishing them well. They have made this decision absolutely heart-wrenching and to say I’m grateful for them would be a massive understatement,” Robinson’s post said in part.

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