Buy the Dartmouth Swim Team on eBay

The pool in Kentucky (indoors) had ample spectator seating for those who would attend a Dartmouth swim meet. I had only pointed out the Kentucky pool as a sidenote that pools don't HAVE to cost outrageous amounts. Really, the facility shouldn't be the issue. They're doing just fine right now with their pool and so are a number of other college swimming programs. Programs with pools built in the late 60's/early 70's that may be outdated but are still functional. The bigger issue is the cancellation of the sport due to "budget constraints" or however they want to word it. If every college and university took the athletic department finance sheet and eliminated each program that they run at a loss, they would have to cancel almost ALL of their programs. Swimming certainly falls into this category, but it should be the duty of any athletic-affiliated school (D-I,II,III) to offer the traditional amateur sports at the varisty level. Unfortunately the NCAA and its member institutions have lost sight of the original ideals and focus of college athletics. It's now a business centered around the bottom-line. Another fact out there is that there are many schools offering swimming programs that are in much greater financial hardship than a school like Dartmouth, or big state schools like Nebraska or Iowa State. Cutting a program (whether it be swimming, wrestling, gymnastics, track) with such an insignificant budget (relatively) makes absolutely no sense. Cutting the athletic program... now that would be a cost-cutting move. Think of it this way, if your company needed to do some financial housecleaning to meet its numbers what would it do... fire Joe who works on project X, a non-revenue generating, dead-in-the-water R&D program OR eliminate project X? OK, I tried. -RM

The pool in Kentucky (indoors) had ample spectator seating for those who would attend a Dartmouth swim meet. I had only pointed out the Kentucky pool as a sidenote that pools don't HAVE to cost outrageous amounts. Really, the facility shouldn't be the issue. They're doing just fine right now with their pool and so are a number of other college swimming programs. Programs with pools built in the late 60's/early 70's that may be outdated but are still functional. The bigger issue is the cancellation of the sport due to "budget constraints" or however they want to word it. If every college and university took the athletic department finance sheet and eliminated each program that they run at a loss, they would have to cancel almost ALL of their programs. Swimming certainly falls into this category, but it should be the duty of any athletic-affiliated school (D-I,II,III) to offer the traditional amateur sports at the varisty level. Unfortunately the NCAA and its member institutions have lost sight of the original ideals and focus of college athletics. It's now a business centered around the bottom-line. Another fact out there is that there are many schools offering swimming programs that are in much greater financial hardship than a school like Dartmouth, or big state schools like Nebraska or Iowa State. Cutting a program (whether it be swimming, wrestling, gymnastics, track) with such an insignificant budget (relatively) makes absolutely no sense. Cutting the athletic program... now that would be a cost-cutting move. Think of it this way, if your company needed to do some financial housecleaning to meet its numbers what would it do... fire Joe who works on project X, a non-revenue generating, dead-in-the-water R&D program OR eliminate project X? OK, I tried. -RM