Coach of the Year Runner-Up: Stephanie Wriede-Morawski ’92

Harvard coach Stephanie Wriede-Morawski ’92 might just be the only person affiliated with the women’s swimming and diving team who remembers beating Princeton to capture a postseason title. After all, not since she led the team to victory from the water in the 1992 Eastern Women’s Swimming League Championships has the Crimson come away with a championship win over the Tigers.

Now perched on deck, Wriede-Morawski has resurrected Harvard’s program from its subsequent middle-of-the-pack status to challenge for Ancient Eight supremacy—Princeton edged the Crimson by just 16.5 points this year—thanks in large part to her proficient recruiting and hands-off style.

“She’s the kind of coach that won’t hold your hand,” senior Ellie Humphries said. “But she’s an excellent motivator. She helped us to become a team that led from within.”

During a particularly intense midwinter practice, her squad, worn down by two months of strenuous training, failed across the board to meet the challenge times she had set out for them. But rather than collectively dress down her team, Wriede-Morawski pulled aside a small group and placed the burden of getting the entire team up to par on their shoulders.

“By the end,” Humphries said, “people were just blowing away their times. The language she used all year, and in recent years, has been about the team and being responsible not to her but your teammates. Those of us who were upperclassmen on the team fed off that attitude.”

Soon that same mentality trickled down to the team’s youngest members, as freshmen went so far as to challenge their senior counterparts to meet their potential.

“Freshmen would come up to seniors in the weight room,” Humphries said, “and they would say, ‘I know you can do better than that.’”

That Wriede-Morawski injected spunk, combined with the talent infused through four high-quality recruiting classes, left the Crimson just short of its goal—and Wriede-Morawski from a return to the podium.

“All year long we have been emphasizing that it takes the full team to be successful,” she said. “The reason we were so close to Princeton was because of the depth on the team.”

And it’s the same reason that both Harvard and Wriede-Morawski will be back again next year.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.