Lea Maurer finished her second year as the men’s and women’s head coach at the University of Southern California where her men’s team placed in the top 10 at the 2024 NCAA Championships.  Prior to her tenure at Troy, Maurer was an Olympic gold medalist and later served as the Head Women’s Coach at Stanford for seven years. 

 

Lea (Loveless) Maurer was born in Yonkers, New York where she swam for John Collins at Badger Swim Club.  She started her college career at the University of Florida before transferring to Stanford.  Here she swam on 3 NCAA Championship teams while winning several individual events.  Lea also won a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.   She graduated from Stanford with a bachelor’s degree in American Studies (1993) and a master’s in education (1994).

 

Maurer began her coaching career as an assistant coach at Northwestern in 1994 before embarking on a highly successful 10-year run as the head boys’ and girls’ coach at Lake Forest (Ill.) High. Here her boys and girls teams won a mythical national titles along with 8 Illinois Swimming Association Coach of the Year honors.  Among her star swimmers was eventual Olympic gold medalist Matt Grevers.

 

Lea is married to Erik Maurer, an NCAA champion, and they have two sons, Luke and Rex, who swam at Stanford.