Tennessee Director of Athletics Phillip Fulmer announced Tuesday that swimming & diving coach Matt Kredich has agreed to a contract extension through June of 2024.

Coach Matt Kredich

Kredich has completed 14 seasons as a head coach at the University of Tennessee, serving the last seven years as coach of the combined men’s and women’s program.

The extension includes a revised title, Director of Swimming & Diving, and brings his average annual salary to $214,000.

“I consider each day that I get to coach at Tennessee as an honor, privilege, and great responsibility, and I’m very grateful for the faith that Philip Fulmer and the University of Tennessee have placed in me by giving me the chance to be here for another five years,” Kredich said. “I work with an amazing staff, an amazing group of young men and women, and we’re all very excited about the direction that our programs are headed in right now.”

Tennessee finished eighth at the women’s NCAA Championships this year, while the men finished 11th nationally. It was the second consecutive top-10 finish for the women’s team and the second year in a row that the men finished 11th.

“Our swimming & diving programs continue to represent us extremely well in the pool and in the classroom,” Fulmer said. “Matt has an innovative swimming mind and coaching style and is consistently challenging his staff and student-athletes. Tennessee is very fortunate to have a director of swimming & diving of his caliber. We all have tremendous respect for the way he leads his program.”

Tennessee swimmers and divers earned 44 All-America certificates in 2019. Diver Zhipeng (Colin) Zeng won the 2019 NCAA Championship in 1-meter diving (the second NCAA title of his UT career), and the women’s 200 medley relay team of Madeline Banic, Erika Brown, Nikol Popov and Meghan Small gave Tennessee another 2019 NCAA title.

Over the last five years, Tennessee’s women have never finished worse than fourth in the SEC, and the men have finished sixth or better every year during that span - including third place in 2019.

Under his direction, Tennessee has totaled 482 All-America honors, won 56 combined SEC titles and eight individual NCAA titles. Four Olympians, Christine Magnuson, Molly Hannis, Kira Toussaint and Martina Moravcikova swam under Kredich at UT.

On the international stage, Kredich represented Tennessee as the USA Women’s National Team head coach at the 2015 Pan American Games and will serve as the USA Men’s National Team head coach at the upcoming 2019 Pan American Games. He also served as the head coach for Team USA at the 2013 World University Games and was on staff for the 2009 and 2014 World University Games.