On Feb. 15, 2024, Sun sports editor Jane McNally and staff writer Hamna Waseem sat down with newly minted football head coach Dan Swanstrom. The three spoke for an hour about football, life and everything in between. The interview was intended to be released just ahead of Swanstrom’s inaugural season with the team.
Football head coach Dan Swanstrom’s journey began in the heart of Texas, where football is not just a sport, but a way of life.
Growing up in the vibrant community of Spring Branch, Texas, just outside Houston, football was a shared passion that brought together friends, families and neighbors under the Friday night lights of Stratford High School.
“It was an awesome experience,” Swanstrom said, recalling his high school days. “The football games were very much a huge social event. … The stands had six to eight to 10,000 people depending on who you were playing.”
From the anticipation of game day to the camaraderie of the stands, football was woven into the fabric of residents’ lives.
But Swanstrom’s journey didn’t end on the field at Stratford. While he wasn’t heavily recruited, he found his place at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. It was there, amid the academic rigors and the thrill of the game, that he realized his love for football would extend far beyond his playing days.
Swanstrom playing quarterback for Rhodes College. Photo courtesy of Rhodes College Athletics.
After a brief stint abroad playing for the German Football League, Swanstrom returned to Stratford High School to teach history and coach varsity football.
Swanstrom soon wanted to devote more time to football, rather than dividing his time between teaching and coaching. He began pursuing jobs in collegiate football, where he had decent success, but it was at Johns Hopkins University that he truly hit his stride. Starting as the quarterbacks’ coach, he was quickly promoted to offensive coordinator at 24 years old.
“I probably wasn’t prepared for it, but I had great guidance from the head coach,” Swanstrom said.
Swanstrom found even greater success at Ithaca College, where he was hired as head coach in 2017.
“I spent five years at Ithaca College and got them going in the right direction. …We played some big games and beat our rival [SUNY Cortland] for the first time in seven years,” Swanstrom said, referring to the iconic Cortaca Jug.
As Swanstrom’s coaching prowess gained recognition, he was tapped for the role of offensive coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania in 2021.
“Penn was in a rough situation when I got there,” Swanstrom said. “Last year, we finished 24th in the country and 1st in total offense in the Ivy League.”
Now, Swanstrom’s journey brings him to East Hill, where he assumes the helm as head coach, succeeding David Archer ’04, who was let go after 11 seasons with the Red.
“It’s so exciting to think I can build a program with my visions, bring the people that I want, and create the culture that’s needed to build this sphere,” Swanstrom said.
Below is the full transcript of the first interview with football head coach Dan Swanstrom. The transcript has been edited for clarity.
Jane McNally: We’re trying to do this three-part interview series to get to know you better [and] have our audience know you better.
Dan Swanstrom: Sure.
Jane McNally: So, the first part is kind of [about your personal] background. Like, who you are not as the coach, you know. To start, tell us about your journey playing football growing up to playing [in] college and now your coaching career.
Dan Swanstrom: Sure. So I grew up in Houston, Texas, just outside of Houston in an area called Spring Branch and played my high school football in high school at Stratford High School, which was a 5A high school which is the highest level in the Houston area. [Football is a] pretty rich tradition [there]. [I] won a state championship, NFL football players [come from there] … [It’s] a good academic school, good athletic culture, and it was an awesome experience. It was like a place where you kind of grew up — we all grew up — going to the football games. It was very much a huge social event in that area. We kind of knew everyone was going to be at a home game on Friday night and that section of the stands would have, you know, six to eight to 10,000 people depending on who you’re playing. And just because it was what the community did, you know, [in] an elementary and middle school, the idea of playing football at Stratford High School was an exciting deal, and to be on the varsity team and play was a big deal, and getting to be the quarterback for them for me was really neat.
So I played quarterback, played basketball for a few years and then played varsity baseball all the way through my time at Stratford, and it was an okay experience athletically, you know, I rotated with another quarterback through my time there. … I split time and really was a starter just for a portion of my career. I was really recruited by just kind of academic Division-III schools and ended up going to Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.
As I kind of took those trips, you know, being up here in the Northeast for the last 15 years of my life, you kind of learn that there’s a lot of good schools but that in Texas, there’s really not as many opportunities there. So the mixture of academics and the opportunity to play football is kind of what led me to Rhodes College in Memphis. … I’ve always had a love for the game. I’ve always wanted to be around football. I wanted to play as long as I could. Unfortunately, at some point, someone tells you that you can’t.
But then I had a tremendous college experience. I had a tremendous playing career at Rhodes, I had a tremendous academic experience. School was hard and it was tough, but I enjoyed the process of having success in the classroom. I enjoyed the process of being a good quarterback. You know, it really just was an unbelievable experience for me.
After I finished my four years in college, I had a chance to go over and play in Germany. I signed a contract with the team. It was called the Darmstadt Diamonds. So I went over there and played. Literally the day after I graduated I was on a plane to Frankfurt, flew out there and I was there for six or seven months. And we won the GFL championship there, playing quarterback, and I came back to Houston after I finished my season and won the championship there and then I got hired at Stratford High School.
They lost their coach at the beginning of the season, and the coach I played for hired me on an emergency certification because they were kind of in dire straits missing a coach and a world history teacher so I plugged in, taught world history for a year, coached football [and] coached baseball.
It was an interesting time — it was 2005 in Houston. Literally, I remember landing in Miami before flying over and seeing the pictures from [Hurricane] Katrina. When I landed and [saw] what’s going on in New Orleans and then being in the classroom with the influx of, you know, the refugees from New Orleans being in my classroom. So our classrooms were packed. For a lot of students [there were] just uncertainties. [It was] a very challenging time in the classroom [and] a very unique experience being in the classroom. [I] probably wasn’t very prepared for it, honestly, to teach in that environment. And I wasn’t very good at it either.
And so I started pursuing college jobs and grabbed a graduate assistant job at the University of Redlands in Southern California. [I] got a master’s degree in higher education coaching quarterbacks [and] receivers there and had some success before getting hired as the quarterbacks coach at Johns Hopkins University. I coached quarterbacks for one year [and] they promoted me to the offensive coordinator when I was 24 years old.
Once again, [I was] probably not prepared for it. But [I] got away with it. You know, with great guidance from the head coach and a tremendous head coach, [I] got a PhD in coaching and leadership there.
And then [I] got hired by the University of Pennsylvania after six years at Johns Hopkins. I had a lot of success at Johns Hopkins; [we won] five conference championships and our offense was really, really good. And then [I] went to Penn and we went to Ivy League Championships. Our quarterback was tremendous. He was first team All-League multiple years and played in the NFL for a little bit.
Then, Ithaca College hired me as their head coach. I spent five years with Ithaca College and got them going in the right direction. …[When I] came into their program they kind of hit a rough patch and [then] we were very good. I think we were conference champions three times, and we played some big games with some big teams and beat our rival for the first time in seven years. So that was a big deal. And then Penn offered me the job to be the offensive coordinator, did that for two years. You know, Penn was in a rough situation. They were 3-7. They finished 120th in the country in offense. And I think last year we finished like 24th in the country and first in total offense in the Ivy League for two years. And I think we were 14-6 since I returned from that 3-7 year and then had the opportunity to come here. That’s the CliffsNotes.
Swanstrom was introduced as the head coach of Cornell football with an introductory press conference on Dec. 7, 2023. Photo courtesy of Cornell Athletics.
Jane McNally: Yeah. When would you say you kind of knew you wanted to revolve your professional career around coaching –– you played [professionally] a year in Germany, which is super cool. [How] did you know that you wanted to stick with coaching [and quit professional football]?
Dan Swanstrom: So when I played in Germany, it was awesome. It was an awesome experience, and we were really good. And we won the championship –– that team had never won a championship before and we were explosive. We put up huge numbers, threw a million touchdown passes and no one cared. You know what I mean? It’s like, okay, so this is it. Like, I could come back and play in Germany for the rest of my life. They’ll have me there. But I wasn’t going to be an NFL quarterback –– like, that just wasn’t going to happen. It just wasn’t in the cards. So, it’s like: how long am I going to do this for? For 1,500 Euros a month for six months out of the year?
So when I came back … I knew I wanted to be around sports. I knew I wasn’t ready to leave that part of that life behind. You know, I’m very active. [I had] the academic piece of growing up and then the other piece of my growing up was all athletic based, and I just wasn’t ready to let go of that, and I didn’t really have a [different] plan. And the [Stratford] high school situation kind of helped accelerate that by the way things worked out. Literally, I land in Houston in early September. They’ve already started their season and they lose a coach, and then you get plugged in as a long-term. That wasn’t my plan. That was a phone call from the coach going: ‘Hey, you know, I know you’re back in town. Can you help us out? We’d love to have you … but we need help in football. We need help in baseball. We’d love for you to do that.’
So that kind of plugged me in, and you’re not prepared for the classroom, you know, so I got plugged in as coach and taught a world history class in the middle of [Hurricane] Katrina, and I wasn’t very good at it. You know, the ability to keep attention. You know, you’ve worked out this will be easy. I’ll have an impact here. No problem. And I was like, ‘Okay, well. This isn’t going the way I thought it would.’ I liked the football part. I liked the coaching part. The baseball part was really fun, too. I worked for a great baseball coach –– super organized and really outside-the-box thinker. He’s from Michigan. He was tremendous. So it was a really neat experience to be around. Just really smart coaches and teachers and that situation in the classroom setting, and then I was like, maybe I’ll just try getting a college graduate assistant job. And the University of Redlands, off my playing career and all that type of stuff, offered me that first opportunity to get out there and that was a different experience altogether. And that kind of had me questioning what I was going to do. It wasn’t until Johns Hopkins and being around Jim Margraff, being around that program, [where] I was like, okay, this is what I want to do. This is exactly what I want –– to be in a program like this. I want to be around people like this. I want to do it this way for as long as I possibly can. So I would say kind of the first year or two at Johns Hopkins was the realization you can be successful kind of in a different way in the sport of football. … I was like okay, I figured out [how to] pursue it this way. And we’ll see where it goes.
Hamna Waseem: So, you know, speaking of your time in Texas as a coach, I’d love to hear more about your relationship with Andrew Luck. Or if you maybe sustained a relationship throughout the years or even at just that moment.
Dan Swanstrom: Well, apparently –– so he gave out my cell phone. I don’t bother him at all. We don’t talk. We don’t –– I just left him alone. You know what I mean? I just figured he’s busy and he’s getting pulled in so many different directions. So like, we stayed in touch certainly, you know, us being back in the summers and stuff like that, when he was at Stanford and stuff like that. But basically, we’d have some throwing sessions and stuff like that after morning workouts in the summers and things like that. But the truth is, when he kind of elevated to that level of prospect and at his senior year at Stanford when we knew he was going to be like the number one pick and he’s getting pulled in every direction, I just never kind of really reached out to him that much.
Andrew Luck, who went on to establish himself as a fixture at quarterback in the National Football League, spent his high school days at Stratford. Photo courtesy of Aaron M. Sprecher/AP.
But he gave out my cell phone recently to a recruit and the recruit’s family. I was like, ‘Andrew, I don’t bother you. But you’re okay handing my cell phone out to other people?’ And I got a phone call from a Georgia number, just this random Georgia number. And I pick it up and [they] say, ‘Hey, I got your number from Andrew Luck.’ I guess if someone’s gonna get my number, that’s one way to do it.
Jane McNally: I mean, I feel like some of the biggest headlines after you took the Cornell job were your previous stint at Ithaca College and your return back here. Can you kind of take us through that process? Like, were you kind of looking forward to being in Ithaca again? Rekindling any past relationships?
Dan Swanstrom: Yeah, of course. I’ve got great friends here. I’ve got great relationships with many people here, you know. In fact, the family I’m staying with [is] the Getzins’. They’re both doctors here in town. [They are] tremendous friends and I’m staying in their apartment above their house and above the garage, like, their [sons are] crazy little brothers just up in their little studio apartment. … And then Susan Bassett [’83], the director of athletics over at Ithaca College, is a great friend of mine. And, you know, there’s so many people that we just bumped into that have just been so helpful in the past, and the real estate agent, you know, people we played golf with, the other coaches that I see as my friends here [at] Cornell. And my kids having friends that they went to elementary school with and, you know, taking the impact of moving them out of schools and stuff like that is obviously nice. You know, that’s a nice piece of this, but I wouldn’t [take this job] if I didn’t think the football piece had a chance to be good. And that was first and foremost. And those things are the nice secondary pieces of coming back to a place [where] I have comfort and friends and relationships that help me with the transition in the move. So that’s just a perk. I mean, I guess the good part is nobody’s gone from Philly to Ithaca to Philly back to Ithaca like I have. But at least wherever I go, people at least won’t be back. So I’ve got that going.
Jane McNally: Yeah, definitely. I guess I have to ask you [if you have] any particular favorite spots in Ithaca that you are maybe looking forward to getting back to.
Dan Swanstrom: You mean, just food wise? Just in general?
Jane McNally: Yeah, in general.
Dan Swanstrom: Well, a couple things like I like to do –– [it]s a little cold now. But [when] our kids were smaller [back] then. You know, we used to hit like a three-and-a-half mile loop at Stewart Park which [was] awesome, you know. Certainly hanging out at the lake in the summer months is tremendous. Down Taughannock [Falls] State Park and stuff like that, there’s [a] little small beach there. And then food spots, there’s many you know, I mean, like Simeon’s has always been great to us, and Dean [Zervos], their owner, is always great. [Ithaca] Ale House is tremendous. I really like The Rook which is down a little further. It’s a really good spot –– makes us incredible breakfast.
Really when you think about it, like the food piece of [Ithaca] and the social aspect of it in a small town like this is pretty unique. And it’s pretty nice to have those pieces back. In fact, the day before I came back for the press conference, you know, me and my mom went up to Simeon’s and sat up at a booth and ate and it was just like that. It’s just easy. You know, if you go downtown in Philadelphia it’s like, okay, it takes me 30 minutes to drive down there. Parking is going to be a nightmare. Traffic could be a nightmare. But then you have like, pretty places to eat [in Ithaca], and being able to just park in the parking garage and [a] three-minute walk [right] where you want to be is really nice.
Jane McNally: Just a final question: Is there anything else you’d like our audience to know about you? Just anything personal?
Dan Swanstrom: No, I’m very uninteresting. Yeah, I have no hobbies. You know what I mean? Like I have no hobbies, like I really concern myself with two things. I try to do things the right way. You know, I really try to have a high moral compass and try to do things to the best of my ability. Doesn’t mean I’m perfect, but I certainly try to do things right. I try to set an example for our players of how to act. How to help them grow and develop. I want to set that standard for them day in and day out. You know, I think it’s important for me to set the example. I still train hard, like diet, hydration –– I do all of that to try to set a very clear standard. But when you do live that style of life, you know, there’s not much [else] to it, you know –– I’ve got my wife and we’ve got our three children and we[’ve] got this football program. It’s not a lot of time for much else in this profession that you choose. It’s a wild profession and the commitment to it is very, very strong and just doesn’t allow for much more. So, [I’m a] very uninteresting person.
Hamna Waseem: But that still seems like a very interesting lifestyle.
Dan Swanstrom: Oh, no, that part’s exciting. Yeah, like the days fly by and my interactions with the student-athletes and the players and the recruitment of those players is exciting. The idea that I can build a program and my vision and bring the people that I want, from the coaches to the type of players to the type of culture that you want to build and develop and being the spear of that as it develops –– it’s an amazing experience and an amazing opportunity. And, you know, [I’ll] never take that for granted.