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.
Former Member
Phil,
It's "competitive" swimming......... not "open swim".
Sorry if you don't like spending money on state teams to "win more meets". I personally love the concept.
Again.... we are at complete odds.
John Smith
Former Member
Bill S.,
Remember..... this forum is also part entertainment..... :-)
I can assure you we all recognize and respect his incredible accomplishment in the 50 free. Sam, Phil and I are merely throwing daggers.
John Smith
Former Member
Man I wish I had started this discussion thread. I could have EASILY won the coveted 2005 "Most Controversial Discussion" award.
John Smith
Craigll:
Are you sure of this? I heard that Inge swam for the Tualatin Hills Thunderbolt Club out of Oregon under coach Paul Bergen. In fact I recall reading on this forum that Swimmer Bill Volkening said that this story was never true about swimming with tennis shoes and that she made incredible improvements because of a unique and innovative dry land program. I never heard that she swam in Virginia.
Former Member
I have been meaning to add this but keep forgetting. Inge dde Bruin practice at Virginai with the maem's team. She didn't attend classes but only worked out with them. She really improved and didn't take away any scholarships for the women at Virginia. While she was there, she did 10x 100 repeats four times with conversee allstar high tops & a complete warmup outfit.
Former Member
Well, thank about 30 years ago it was the Aussies, and the Americans and the Europeans and sometimes Japanese that medaled at the Olympics. And some good latin Americans. Now the sport is more around the world where someone can go to the olympics and worlds. And less people in the third world have to go under special categories like Eric the Eeel, that came from a wealthy Afrcian family and got to train in Spain and almost dropped a mintue off of his time. India qualified I think in the A standard at worlds in a relay.
Former Member
Well, Gary is a sprinter and training a lot of yardage doesn't make sense. Swimming at a faster speed with more rest makes sense for a 50 and 100 freestyler. As for foreign swimmers a lot of sports now have people compete for one country and train in another these days. Swimming isn't the only one. In fact, that why we now are seeing some North Arfician swimmers doing good in swimming now than in the past.
Very difficult to follow this post.....but here are some thoughts.
I coached Division I swimming for over 10 years. In that time I had several American swimmers and a good amount of foriegn swimmer on my teams. There were many different reason why these swimmers participated on my team.
1. It was rare, maybe one of two swimmers over my entire career, that received a "full" ride scholarship. Most athletes were on partial scholarships and had to find funding from other areas (parents, grants, work, etc).
2. I would have to say in general terms that I recruited for American swimmers first. They are easier to get into school, it is more cost effective to recruit them, and there are many more American athletes to choose from. Being a midlevel division one school, I had many top level American athletes decide not to attend my school because the wanted to go to a top ten school on a lesser or no scholarship situation. "Many American athletes pass on money to train with better programs". With this in mind, I wouldn't award a scholarship to an American athlete that didn't meet my minimal guidelines for a scholarship.
3. I had foriegn athletes walk on to my program or have very little scholarship. My point being, that all foriegn athletes don't come here just to gain America training. They are here for an education. Most of the foreign athletes were better students than there America counter parts. Most of my foreign athletes went on to graduate school and paid for it themselves.
4. I also found it interesting that most of the foreign athletes could get a free education back home at their universities. They all wanted to come to America, because they got the best opportunity here, plus they got to keep swimming.
5. I find it interesting that American is one of the only counties in the world that ties it's sport with it's education programs. Sometimes I really wonder why our universities haven't gotten out of the sports business and focused on pure education. Most athletic departments lose money. I really think sports would be better off away from education and left to find a way to survive on its own. (This is a whole other subject to be discuss later).
This is a difficult topic and I understand most of the viewpoints on this forum. It will be interesting to see where this goes in the future.
Former Member
Naaa, I think it will be better to send all non-american people back home and let the indians keep the property....:D
Former Member
Dennis Tesch,
Nice response ..... however,
1. With the limited number of available swimming sholarships most teams divide their money in fractions between swimmers. Only the best of the best usually get a full ride these days. I am not surprised that you had practically no foreign swimmers on full ride during your coaching term. None the less, I applaud this fact.
2. Recruiting for a mid level division I school is slightly different than recruiting at the top 10 division I schools. Great talent to support the top ten teams gets even more scarce and more competitive to come by. It is not surprising that coaches give up now and then and turn abroad for better swimmers... not that I personally approve of it. And Im not saying that mid level division one schools don't have an occasional finalist at "the show" or someone that is a real "player" and scores points. But you must have certainly struggled to get top notch domestic talent while you were recruiting each year. If American pass on money you offered then they obviously don't need it enough. I think this discussion starts to split into a tier I vs. a larger tier II talent pool at some point.
3. I submit to you that the foreign athletes that you say come here for mostly an education are usually not the talented ones that are competing against our 400 free relay members at the Olympics. Again, we begin to split the discussion from tier I to tier II players at NCAAs.
4. Sounds like many of your foreigners were well enough off to attend an American university on their own dime.
5. Swimming and lessor revenue sports would probably die a slow death if colleges divested themselves from athletics.
John Smith
