Iowa State has introduced the retirement of very long time head swimming and diving coach Duane Sorenson. Additionally serving because the dean of Massive 12 girls’s swimming and diving coaches, Sorenson has been on the helm of Iowa State’s program for 27 seasons, which makes him the second-longest tenured head coach of a girls’s sport in Iowa State historical past.
Sorenson can also be the winningest coach in Cyclones swimming and diving historical past, retiring as the pinnacle coach answerable for 141 of Iowa State’s 240 all-time twin meet wins, which comes out to round 59%. No different Iowa State swimming and diving head coach has reached 100 twin meet victories. Furthermore, Sorenson ends his tenure at Iowa State with a 141-114-2 twin meet report. Sorenson orchestrated 11 seasons through which the Cyclones received 6 or extra twin meets, they usually recorded high 3 finishes on the Massive 12 Championships, together with a a 4-year stretch of high 3 finishes from 2014-2017.
Talking on his retirement, Sorenson stated partly “I’ve had the pleasure to work with so many excellent, motivated, brilliant, decided, and aggressive younger girls over these a few years and my objective for every Iowa State athlete I coached was as they seemed again on their Cyclone profession, they had been grateful and would readily say, ‘these had been the very best 4 years of my life.’”
Sorenson was honored as Massive 12 Swim Coach of the 12 months twice throughout his tenure at Iowa State. The primary got here in 2001, when Sorenson was named Co-Swim Coach of the 12 months. He received sole honors in 2015, when his Cyclones got here in 2nd with a program report 618.5 factors. Iowa State completed as excessive as 2nd at Massive 12s as not too long ago as final 12 months, once they got here in 2nd on the 2023 meet in a really shut battle with TCU, West Virginia, and Kansas.
Navigating the addition of BYU, Cincinnati, and Houston to the Massive 12 Convention, Iowa State got here in eighth on the Massive 12 Championships final month. With Sorenson retiring, head diving coach Jeff Warrick and assistant head swim coach Kelly Nordell are the one remaining members of the employees. Whereas Iowa State will certainly conduct a nationwide seek for their new head coach, Nordell will possible be a contender for the place. She’s been teaching at Iowa State since 2008 and has been serving as assistant head coach since 2010.
Sorenson’s teaching profession has been one marked by lengthy tenures. Previous to his 27-year stint as head coach of Iowa State, Sorenson was the pinnacle coach of Minnesota-based membership group South East Metro Sharks for 20 years. Throughout his 20 years with SEMS, he led the group to five Minnesota state championships and 11 runner-up finishes. He coached 25 senior nationwide qualifiers, 67 junior nationwide qualifiers, and greater than 120 of his SEMS swimmers went on to compete in faculty.
