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.
Originally posted by Paul Smith
- aquageek; read my message and answer any of the questons that I raised. Happy to go into detail with you on my politics one to one anytime. When those same countries that pay US taxes start offering full ride swimming scholorships to US citizens then I'll be open to returning the favor here.
What about foreign corps that give millions to endowments or build a department building or fund a professorship? Would that be ok by your standards or would they just have to fund a simple swimming scholarship? Also, I'm not aware of any corporations, US or otherwise, that are allowed to fund individual sports scholarships. If a US company does a lot of business overseas maybe we should exclude them also since they could do so much more here if they cut back their business model and were less profitable.
Originally posted by Paul Smith
- aquageek; read my message and answer any of the questons that I raised. Happy to go into detail with you on my politics one to one anytime. When those same countries that pay US taxes start offering full ride swimming scholorships to US citizens then I'll be open to returning the favor here.
What about foreign corps that give millions to endowments or build a department building or fund a professorship? Would that be ok by your standards or would they just have to fund a simple swimming scholarship? Also, I'm not aware of any corporations, US or otherwise, that are allowed to fund individual sports scholarships. If a US company does a lot of business overseas maybe we should exclude them also since they could do so much more here if they cut back their business model and were less profitable.
