Deena Deardurff Schmidt enters her 12th season as the head swimming and diving coach at San Diego State. Schmidt took the reigns of the newly reinstated Aztec program in 1994. In her 11 years on the Mesa, she has annually transformed a group of talented individuals into one of the most competitive teams in southern California.
Last season, she helped coach the 200 free relay to a SDSU record time of 1:36:54 at the Mountain West Conference Championships in February. Two swimmers - Sara Davis and Katie Smith - posted times that ranked in the school[apos]s all-time top five. Three of the top five relays also recorded top five times.
During the 2003-04 season, Deardurff Schmidt saw her swimmers turn in a total of 15 marks that entered the school record book among the all-time top five. In addition, four of the five Aztec relay teams posted top-five finishes, headed by a school record mark in the 400 freestyle relay. The team ended the 2003-2004 season on a strong note by winning their final three dual meets and six of their last eight to post an 8-5 overall record. Included in a year that marked Schmidt[apos]s second highest win total (8) and winning percentage (.615) during her tenure at SDSU, was a victory in the Sprint Meet at the UCI Invitational, which came against such competition as Nebraska, Pepperdine, and UC Irvine. To close out the year, Aztec swimmers recorded nine individual and four relay times that were among the top five in school history at the conference meet.
For their performance in the pool, Schmidt had one swimmer recognized as first team all-MWC and one named to the all-MWC second team at the conference meet.
The 2001-02 season was one of the Aztecs[apos] most successful under Schmidt, with the team setting eight school records at the MWC championship. Four of those school bests came in relay events (800 and 200 freestyle plus the 200 and 400 medleys). The Aztecs also set program bests in the 50, 100 and 200 freestyle as well as the 100 backstroke and 100 breaststroke at the league championship. Twelve Aztecs scored points as a member of a relay team or on an individual basis at the league meet.
That squad also saw success during the regular season, posting the best dual-meet record (10-3) since the program was reinstated. The team also registered 12 more top-three finishes for the program[apos]s record book plus five other times that ranked among the top five in the Aztec record book.
Not only did Schmidt assemble a competitive Division I swim program, she also built a national-powerhouse water polo team in her stint as SDSU head coach from 1995-1998. Her water polo squads qualified for the National Collegiate Championships every year, posting a 90-42 record and finishing ranked no lower than seventh nationally each of those seasons.
Schmidt[apos]s swimming career began at a young age and she found success early. At the age of 12, she qualified for Senior Nationals - the nation[apos]s top meet at the time - and the following year won the 100-meter butterfly.
A few years later, in 1971, she upsetCanadian triple-gold medalist Leslie Cliff inthe 100-meter butterfly at the Pan American Games in Columbia. Schmidt also took home a silver medal as part of the 400-meter medley relay team.
The next year, at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, Schmidt was part of the gold-medal winning 400-medley relay team, swimming the butterfly leg ofthat event. She also finished fourth in the 100 butterfly.
To say Schmidt left her mark on the international swim world is an understatement. She broke the world record in the 100 butterfly and was a member of the world record-setting 400-medley relay and 400-freestyle relay teams.
However, Schmidt[apos]s exploits did not end with her swimming accomplishments. In 1975, as a member of the Cincinnati Marlins water polo team, Schmidt was the Most Valuable Player at the Senior National Water Polo Championships in Albuquerque, N.M.
A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Schmidt graduated from Wyoming High School, where she earned All-America honors in swimming and water polo. A 1988 graduate of San Diego State, Deardurff Schmidt also holds a California Community College teaching credential and prior to her hiring at SDSU, she had been teaching and coaching swimming at nearby Grossmont Community College, since 1986.
Deardurff Schmidt and her husband, Bob, reside in El Cajon and have two children, Michael, 23, who was a swimmer at UNLV, and Tyler, 19, a student at SDSU.