There has been a lot of discussion since Athens about foreign swimmers training in the United States. Most of them attend U.S. Universities, receive athletic scholarships, and compete at NCAA's. Some notable examples include Duje Draganja (Cal), Fred Bousquet and Kirsty Coventry (Auburn), Markus Rogan (Stanford), and the South African sprinters (Arizona). Some train in the U.S., but don't compete for a university (Inge de Bruijn). All of these athletes benefit from U.S. coaching, from training with U.S. swimmers, and in some cases, from financial support provided by U.S. entities (athletic scholarships). They all turn around and then win medals for other countries.
A couple questions: 1) What do you think about this arrangement generally? 2) Is it of benefit or detriment to U.S. swimming to have these foreign athletes training and competing here? 3) Should we be giving athletic scholarships, which are a scarce resource in swimming, to foreign athletes who will represent their own countries internationally instead of U.S.-born swimmers who will represent us internationally?
I'm sure there are other issues, but these come directly to mind.
Stephanie, I don’t know of any elite US swimmers that went to Australian universities with swimming scholarships. Of whom are you speaking?
I also couldn’t track down the financial aid section of the Bill of Rights. I must have an old copy.
But back to the original questions. As the parent of a soon to be college freshman student/athlete (a swimmer of course), I would love to see more scholarship opportunities offered to US swimmers. But the reality of the situation is that coaches at top schools are under great pressures to produce championships and to place high at NCAA. One way to score at NCAA’s is to buy a couple of world class foreign swimmers, at the expense of partial scholarships to a bunch of real good domestic swimmers. I would love to see the NCAA cap the amount of athletic scholarships to foreign athletes to 10% of total scholarships.
For me it is an issue of opportunity and reward, not of international competition. Over 95% of US scholarship swimmers will NEVER represent USA in international competition. But how many kids will choose to quit swimming in college, because there is no reward for all their hard work? How many kids (particularly boys) quit swimming because for most there is no future in swimming after high school (they don’t all know they can swim Masters). How many would stay in swimming if they were give even a partial scholarship in college?
Is it important that the NCAA All-Americans all be Americans? No, but it would be nice to see at least 50% that can speak English.
Selfish? Protective? Guilty!… Just don’t get us started on Title 9
Stephanie, I don’t know of any elite US swimmers that went to Australian universities with swimming scholarships. Of whom are you speaking?
I also couldn’t track down the financial aid section of the Bill of Rights. I must have an old copy.
But back to the original questions. As the parent of a soon to be college freshman student/athlete (a swimmer of course), I would love to see more scholarship opportunities offered to US swimmers. But the reality of the situation is that coaches at top schools are under great pressures to produce championships and to place high at NCAA. One way to score at NCAA’s is to buy a couple of world class foreign swimmers, at the expense of partial scholarships to a bunch of real good domestic swimmers. I would love to see the NCAA cap the amount of athletic scholarships to foreign athletes to 10% of total scholarships.
For me it is an issue of opportunity and reward, not of international competition. Over 95% of US scholarship swimmers will NEVER represent USA in international competition. But how many kids will choose to quit swimming in college, because there is no reward for all their hard work? How many kids (particularly boys) quit swimming because for most there is no future in swimming after high school (they don’t all know they can swim Masters). How many would stay in swimming if they were give even a partial scholarship in college?
Is it important that the NCAA All-Americans all be Americans? No, but it would be nice to see at least 50% that can speak English.
Selfish? Protective? Guilty!… Just don’t get us started on Title 9
