Grinnell has fit swimmingly for Stambaugh family
January 30, 2025 — Despite the distance from their family home in Northern California, it didn’t take long for Regan Stambaugh ’26 to realize she made the right decision by attending Grinnell College.
“I think the thing that made us immediately like Grinnell was when Regan started on the swim team. Even before official workouts began, the team itself coalesced like a big family,” says Regan’s dad, Fred Stambaugh. “We’ve had experience with swim teams where the interpersonal culture wasn’t as supportive. But at Grinnell, she was really impressed how everyone welcomed the first-years as full-fledged members of the community.”
Two-and-a-half years later, Fred and Ginger Stambaugh continue to be pleased with how terrifically Grinnell has fit what their daughter was looking for in a higher education experience.
Fred and Ginger Stambaugh sit with their daughter Regan ’26, center, at the Music Concourse in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
“She knew from the get-go that she wanted a small liberal arts college where she would be challenged intellectually, be a good fit on the swim team, and have opportunities to learn and experience things she hadn’t been exposed to yet,” Fred says.
Regan intended to major in French and English, but a simple note from her calculus professor got her thinking about majoring in math (along with French).
“She was always really good at math but was kind of reluctant to embrace her inner geek,” Ginger said. “The professor basically told her ‘I know you view yourself as humanities person, but you should think about math. I rarely see people with your abilities. I think you should take it a few steps further to see if you’d like it.’ That wouldn’t happen at a larger college. The ability to get to know the whole person is unique to a place like Grinnell. That has been such a win for her and for us as parents. It changed the trajectory of her education.”
Eager to share Regan’s Grinnell experiences and their own impressions as parents, Fred and Ginger hosted an Admissions Virtual Happy Hour for Admitted Families in February 2024. “It was nice to be able to share our experience with people who were apprehensive about what it would be like to be at a school that far away,” Fred says.
“Being so far away when your 18-year-old is navigating a whole new life can be daunting from a parental perspective,” Ginger adds. “I benefited so much from the parents that had walked that path before me. I wanted to give that to parents facing it for the first time.”
Fred and Ginger Stambaugh are pictured on the beach in Carmel, California, one of their favorite weekend getaways.
Fred is retired from a career in financial markets, where he mostly worked for big international banks advising corporate and institutional clients. Ginger’s career also was in financial services as she worked in currency options trading. The couple previously lived and worked in London and Chicago before moving to California.
Fred and Ginger support Grinnell’s swimming and diving team in several ways. Ginger has served as a snack coordinator ensuring parents bring snacks for the student-athletes at Grinnell’s home invitationals. They have also made financial gifts to the team and the Athletic Department in general, which has helped with expenses the team incurs when on training trips to Florida.
“Both Fred and I are so thrilled she found this team,” Ginger says. “We know it has done wonders for her not just as a swimmer, but as a person.”
A Midwest Conference finalist in six events, Regan took third place in the 400-yard individual medley, fourth place in 200-yard backstroke, and sixth place in the 200-yard individual medley at the 2024 conference meet. She also had three top six finishes at the 2023 MWC meet. After studying abroad in France during the fall semester, Regan rejoined the team for the Florida training trip in early January and was back competing Jan. 17-18, finishing in the top 10 in the 200- and 400-yard individual medleys.
“She learned a lot about herself in France,” Fred says. “What she didn’t realize was how much pleasure and reciprocal enjoyment she gets from working with the swim team. She did find a pool in France, and she would get training sets Coach Matt [Hedman] designed for her. That was a fantastic degree of support. But the three lanes for swimming at the pool were crowded with people of various levels of swimming abilities and seriousness, and she couldn’t execute the workouts sent to her very well.”
Another reason Ginger sings the praises of Grinnell was the fact that Regan could take part in the Grinnell Singers. Regan was in her high school choir but was limited by her swim commitments and couldn’t participate in musicals. She was concerned in college it would be a similar situation.
“It couldn’t be further from the truth,” Ginger says. “Coach Erin [Hurley] and now Coach Matt work closely with the choir director to figure out when kids can make up their swim practice time, so they can participate twice weekly in Grinnell Singers practices. The fact they enable them to do that and enable them to study abroad is fantastic. The whole recipe at Grinnell has worked really well for this young person who had lots of interests and didn’t want to limit herself.”
—by Jeremy Shapiro