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.
Yay on the U of I being sited in that article on winning Men's tennis without foreign talent. However, I believe our men's tennis coach is now leaving to coach the Australian tennis team.
My understanding on swimming scholarships are, if you are a swimmer of Olympic caliber, you will get a good scholarship, regardless of Nationality. The lesser swimmers(which would be the 99.9% of the rest of them), don't usually get full rides. Colleges piecemeal out the scholarships to get more athletes on scholarships for the minor sports.
I am actually surprised at the number of small colleges sending us information on their swim programs. My son is not swimming anymore, so he is not really looking at them, but he probably could walk on to some of these schools and do well if he wanted to.
He will pick the school based on what is right for his life, not the swimming. A scholarship would be nice, but we don't count on it. They say if you are in swimming for the scholarships, you would be better of taking all the money you spend on your child's swimming from age group up and saving it for college.
Yay on the U of I being sited in that article on winning Men's tennis without foreign talent. However, I believe our men's tennis coach is now leaving to coach the Australian tennis team.
My understanding on swimming scholarships are, if you are a swimmer of Olympic caliber, you will get a good scholarship, regardless of Nationality. The lesser swimmers(which would be the 99.9% of the rest of them), don't usually get full rides. Colleges piecemeal out the scholarships to get more athletes on scholarships for the minor sports.
I am actually surprised at the number of small colleges sending us information on their swim programs. My son is not swimming anymore, so he is not really looking at them, but he probably could walk on to some of these schools and do well if he wanted to.
He will pick the school based on what is right for his life, not the swimming. A scholarship would be nice, but we don't count on it. They say if you are in swimming for the scholarships, you would be better of taking all the money you spend on your child's swimming from age group up and saving it for college.
