Wheaton College Athletics

On March 3, 2017, former Wheaton College (Ill.) Athletics Director Julie Davis announced the hiring of Meghan Ayers as the head coach of the Wheaton women's swimming & diving program.

The Thunder women's swimming & diving team has finished in the top four of the CCIW Championship standings in every season of Ayers' tenure, and in February 2023, Ayers led the Wheaton women's squad to the program's 26th conference title, the most among all CCIW women's athletic teams. She was subsequently named the CCIW Coach of the Year for the first time.

In her time at Wheaton, Ayers has coached three All-Americans, two CCIW Women's Swimming Athletes of the Year, three CCIW Most Valuable Women's Swimming Athletes, two Dennis Ryan Most Outstanding Performers, three CCIW First-Year Athletes of the Meet, and one CCIW Women's Diving Student-Athlete of the Meet.

Prior to her appointment as Wheaton's head coach, Meghan served as an assistant men's and women's swimming coach at Wheaton from 2013-17. In her time as an assistant with the Thunder program, Wheaton won five CCIW Championships, and the women's program had three Top-15 finishes at the NCAA Division IIl Championships. She has served as a coach and private lessons coordinator with the Wheaton Swim Club since 2005.

Ayers swam at the College of Charleston for two years, where she served as the team captain as a sophomore before returning to Illinois to finish her collegiate swimming career at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC). At UIC Ayers was a consolation finalist at the Horizon League Championships.

Ayers earned her B.A. in Classical Languages and Literature from University of Illinois-Chicago in 2007. She attained a Master's Degree in Elementary Education from Wheaton in 2016.

At the time of her appointment, Ayers stated, "As the women's coach, I hope to continue and deepen the women's swimming and diving team's culture of swimming excellence with Christ at the center." She continued, "This position provides me with a unique opportunity to mentor the women's team in their spiritual growth while pushing our student-athletes to excel in the pool. I look forward to working with our current swimmers and recruiting high-caliber athletes to continue keeping Wheaton at the top of the conference and well-represented at the NCAA meet."