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.
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Former Member
IF the universities are so forgiving with all their students who can meet the same criteria as their varsity athletes, I am down with this practice. (After all, one could argue that every member of the Armed Services' Academies' teams is a scholarship athlete, but no one is seriously suggesting that is a competitive disadvantage for everyone else.) However, having dealt with a couple of Big Ten universities, my impression is that they are EXTREMELY stingy with who gets the in state rate.
Div I football: maybe I got the wrong impression from this article, but back when Nebraska football was stinkin' the joint up, they let go a couple of their assistant coaches in a house-cleaning move. The thing that popped my eyes is that both of these guys (and neither one was even as high as the offensive, defensive or special teams coordinator) were earning 6 figures, and one of them was in the 300K range. Granted Nebraska football is not normal.
Div III sports: the part that in my mind makes this more stable is that (1) no one is on scholarship, which means the athletic dept. avoids a major bill the Div I schools have to cover, and (2) I am not aware of any Div III program in any sport that actually makes money and covers other expenses in the dept. The football team has student athletes and that contributes to their education, just as the swim team. More people may care about football, but I'm not seeing any monetary incentive to sacrifice the other sports for the sake of the "revenue sports." Perhaps I was simply lucky enough to go to a school with an appropriate sense of balance and sanity, but that was my experience.
Laure Manaudou? Swim for a U.S. University? Why would she want to? Sacre bleu, she is a multiple-event Olympic Champion! Are you trying to tell me room, board, and free coaching are worth giving up whatever endorsement and sponsorship deals she could cut in her own country? And whatever performance bonuses the French Olympic movement doles out for outstanding swims? And World Cup purses? And if all of that exceeds her expectations she gets to keep every penny of the filthy corporate lucre. Plus, she won the 400; she's got some distance swimming capacity. The Aussies would love her in their pro open water swimming circuit. And, inquiring minds would like to know why she isn't even looking at the preeminent college distance program, the Univ. of Michigan. Who the heck is advising her?
IF the universities are so forgiving with all their students who can meet the same criteria as their varsity athletes, I am down with this practice. (After all, one could argue that every member of the Armed Services' Academies' teams is a scholarship athlete, but no one is seriously suggesting that is a competitive disadvantage for everyone else.) However, having dealt with a couple of Big Ten universities, my impression is that they are EXTREMELY stingy with who gets the in state rate.
Div I football: maybe I got the wrong impression from this article, but back when Nebraska football was stinkin' the joint up, they let go a couple of their assistant coaches in a house-cleaning move. The thing that popped my eyes is that both of these guys (and neither one was even as high as the offensive, defensive or special teams coordinator) were earning 6 figures, and one of them was in the 300K range. Granted Nebraska football is not normal.
Div III sports: the part that in my mind makes this more stable is that (1) no one is on scholarship, which means the athletic dept. avoids a major bill the Div I schools have to cover, and (2) I am not aware of any Div III program in any sport that actually makes money and covers other expenses in the dept. The football team has student athletes and that contributes to their education, just as the swim team. More people may care about football, but I'm not seeing any monetary incentive to sacrifice the other sports for the sake of the "revenue sports." Perhaps I was simply lucky enough to go to a school with an appropriate sense of balance and sanity, but that was my experience.
Laure Manaudou? Swim for a U.S. University? Why would she want to? Sacre bleu, she is a multiple-event Olympic Champion! Are you trying to tell me room, board, and free coaching are worth giving up whatever endorsement and sponsorship deals she could cut in her own country? And whatever performance bonuses the French Olympic movement doles out for outstanding swims? And World Cup purses? And if all of that exceeds her expectations she gets to keep every penny of the filthy corporate lucre. Plus, she won the 400; she's got some distance swimming capacity. The Aussies would love her in their pro open water swimming circuit. And, inquiring minds would like to know why she isn't even looking at the preeminent college distance program, the Univ. of Michigan. Who the heck is advising her?
