Should USA Swimming recruit?

I voted no, but not for the usual reasons. I don't have an ethical, legal or moral problem with the U.S., Australia, or any other country hiring professional swimmers for their teams. I simply think we shouldn't do it now because we don't need that to field competitive teams. We're already like the NY Yankees in swimming. What 's the point of suiting up Roland Schoeman in USA toggs? For the same reason, I am down with Qatar or any other nation trying to kick start their program by hiring some outside talent to make a splash, as it were. The unwritten assumption in this debate is that Americans cheering for "real" Americans is critical to the identity of the Olympics? Why? Yes, nationality can be an effective hook to give us a rooting interest in sports where we know little or nothing. In that sense, it gets people the world over to be mesmerized by athletes we could not have picked out of a police line-up a few weeks earlier. But, other professional sports have long since dropped the idea that every player on the Bears has to be from Chicago, and the fan base seems to be OK with that. Please, oh Tall One, look at the potential effects of this developement. Right now, international athletics are working under a system comparable to the old baseball reserve clause (i.e. even players who have completed a contract with their current team cannot negotiate a new deal with a different team, or play for them, unless their current team trades their "rights" No free agency). You can't switch teams without going through the arduous process of emmigrating and naturalizing. The effect is that there is not so much money in world class swimming (unless you happen to be a world record holder, and photogenic, and have a relentless drive for self-promotion). This is why we lose world class athletes to soccer and football and basketball (where even a lightly used reserve forward with knees like rusty hinges and a shooting touch like a poorly tuned Studebaker can be a multi-millionaire), because of the money. You're worried about a bidding war for top swimming talent. I'm telling you that is a development that may completely transform the reality of swimming being a minor, non-revenue sport. In other discussions, you've called for stuff like that there. Don't lose your nerve now. Matt

Originally posted by Frank Thompson The NCAA forbids people to accept any payments beyond the scholarship so the swimmers are not paid which is a big difference. Would I be quibbling to assert that giving someone a check to cover their tuition and living expenses is paying them even if you call it a scholarship? It doesn't seem to me that forbidding them to earn money from any other source changes the fact that you are paying them, nor does underpaying them. So, even if you don't pay them very much, and you require that they spend the bulk of what you pay them on tuition at your school, aren't you still basically paying them to swim for your program instead of someone else's? Outside of the magnitude of the payments how is that fundamentally different from a country paying a swimmer to swim on that country's national team?

Originally posted by TheGoodSmith Well, when you pay someone to swim on your Olympic team you have a chance to reap the rewards of their efforts. When you pay someone to go to a domestic college, they usually wind up taking their skills and training back home to represent their own country at the Olympics against you. My question was about paying a swimmer to swim for your school in NCAA competition and thereby reap the rewards of your efforts. You seem to insist that universities give out scholarships based on contributing to the Olympic team. Now that the cold war is over and the Olympics have gone professional wouldn't it make sense to fund your Olympic team more directly?

Originally posted by LindsayNB What do you see as the difference between universities recruiting and paying swimmers (foreign or otherwise) to swim on their team and countries recruiting and paying swimmers to swim on their team? The NCAA forbids people to except any payments beyond the scholarship so the swimmers are not paid which is a big difference. You would never see a univeristy give the kind of money that Qater is offering and if they did it would be illegal and against NCAA regulations. Also athletes cannot have any sponsors as individuals and cannot receive compensation from them. The majority of swimmers and athletes in NCAA sports do not go on to professional sports after graduation. Schlorships are not just given to the very best athletes. And the money is just not there for college athletes in comparison to a professional. I think this is some of the reasons why Michael Phelps choose to be a professional. In fact you cannot take any payments, gifts and favors from anyone or you will be in trouble. The only thing you get funded for is an education, just like if someone getting an educational scholarship. Here is a question from a different angle. Suppose you drop swimming out of this. If you gave a foreign student an educational scholarship over USA students? Is that right? Do the same people feel the same about this as they do about the foreign students taking swimming scholarships? Or is it just swimming or sports related only?

Oh, Smith, what little legs you had with your foreign swimmers argument, that you could never really quantify with facts, have completely come out from under you with this academic scholarship nonsense you are now spouting. It's like when a tri athlete takes off the fins, pull buoys, heart rate monitor and paddles and attempts a Masters workout. Each and every public or private university of any merit whatsoever has a foreign element in their student body. It is beneficial to the students and the university. By graduating, and, gulp, even paying for these students and then sending them back home (abroad) we are doing worlds more good than the thousands of dollars we paid to educate them. The list of US educated foreign dignitaries, leaders,etc is even longer than your impressive arm span. In a time when the US is pretty much roundly hated outside our borders (take Cruise for instance), I don't see a real problem with trying to improve that image by educating a few folks. It's a global economy, man. Not sure why the great angst and handwringing about exposing our kids to that.

Well, when you pay someone to swim on your Olympic team you have a chance to reap the rewards of their efforts. When you pay someone to go to a domestic college, they usually wind up taking their skills and training back home to represent their own country at the Olympics against you. John Smith

Frank, Same thing. If my kid has straight A's and gets bumped on an academic scholarship due to financial constraints with a school that is supposedly out of money but then manages to portion out additional funds to foreign kid's scholarships..... i.e. public tax dollars that I may have paid indirectly to the school to begin with.... ? no way !..... I'd still be pissed off. We have enough problems and shortfalls in our own country. Same principle. Foreigners are more than welcome to come to school in the US....... but do it on their own dime. John Smith

Geek, Again, you've missed the entire point of my entire response. I never said not to educate foreigners or prohibit them from entering our education system. The issue is one of funding.... something that contrary to your beliefs, is in fact a scarce resource in our universities and education system nationwide. My own kids and my neighbor's kids come first in my opinion. We can start solving the rest of the world's problems and funding their education or training careers only after we have our own financial problems under control. Fact is... while some foreigners stay in the US after graduation, the sad fact is many do not. They return home and use their education in ways that often ends up competing with the very industries we gave them money toward their educations. No thanks Geek. You give them your money. I'll give domestic grown kids my tax money. As for the triathlete comparison..... I'm not hip on triathletes and their selfish lifestyles either. John Smith

No way. The US wouldn't do this. They don't have the funds to pay their current world class swimmers what they should so they aren't going to go out and recruit new swimmers. That being said. If I were a US National Team Member, I'd be pissed. It is somewhat different for a country like Qatar to recruit. They don't have their own program, maybe this will help to develop that. They want to put themselves on the map. They also are getting athletes (at least thus far) from small countries without huge teams or even competitive teams. They aren't going to land a top level American or Aussie athlete. Those swimmers have far to much pride in their country to switch over. The Aussies also have tons of support - financial and fan. The US doesn't have as much, but I'd be surprised if a US based company sponsored US born swimmers that swim for another country. I don't see this as equal to a college scholarship.

You've continued with your heartfelt speeches until blue in the face yet have failed to produce a single piece of information to bolster your claims that the US is falling behind in sports in any way whatsoever. This, despite rampant evidence to the contrary. And, every single credible university in the world strives to have a well rounded student body, including foreign students, to improve the quality of the education and educational experience. Do you really think your beloved UT would be the world class institution it is if it closed it's doors? C'mon man, then it would be another Bob Jones U. People don't go to UT becuase it is a little ethnocentric closed door university. It took me 5 minutes (that you didn't take) to go to the UT website and note a whopping 3.8% of your student body is foreign. Interestingly, 30% of those are Chinese. Don't you think it might benefit UT students and the US in general to learn alongside students from the country that will be the greatest economic and military adversary to the US for the foreseeable future? Who is losing out with this? Again, you fail to realize that in swimming, maybe, and in industry, absolutely definitely, the ability to interact and compete alongside the brightest and strongest only makes the US stronger. It's not rocket science, it's really rather simple.