ASU Men's Swimming/Diving Cut

What happens if the swim teams, men and/or women, have their own "swimming funds" or some sort of "endowment funds"??? Chris Woo ('76 Olympics *** stroker w/ a gold medal on 4x100 medley relay) lives here in Honolulu. He swam at UCLA when that program was cut. He said just a few years ago, some UCLA alums from his time way back when offered to fund a rejuvinated men's swimming program at UCLA. The university said "no."

Geek - not all SEC schools field men's swimming. Arkansas, Mississipi St., Mississippi, and Vanderbilt do not have men's swimming. If you want to compare the SEC to ASU - then you might find that ASU's football attendance ranks just 36 (2006). I don't have numbers handy but I'd say that predicts their football revenue is not nearly as large as that provided at the big SEC schools. The SEC leads the NCAA in football attendance (75,706 SEC vs. 56,314 PAC10). 7 of the top 20 teams in football attendance are from the SEC. Only ONE PAC10 team in the top 20. ASU's AD budget is about $38-$40M (based on a Google search). Way short of what Ohio State and Texas spend (>$100M). Those two schools spend obscene amounts of money on athletics. They have money to spare for money-pit sports like men's swimming.

Whow - what a BUMMER!!! :cry: Here in San Francisco, I was wondering if some of the high tech companies in Silicon Valley might want to sponsor swimming & diving at one of the colleges that are dropping it. At first it might appear tacky to have the logos of Intel, HP, or Yahoo, etc. adorning the natatorium at these colleges. However mass transit stations have advertising on the wall above the track area. Having tastefully controlled advertising is better than having to go without a swimming & diving department altogether. Dolphin 2

Chris Woo ('76 Olympics *** stroker w/ a gold medal on 4x100 medley relay) lives here in Honolulu. He swam at UCLA when that program was cut. He said just a few years ago, some UCLA alums from his time way back when offered to fund a rejuvinated men's swimming program at UCLA. The university said "no." Unless there is more to this offer - I bet the funding was not a long-term commitment. I can't find it but I thought I read somewhere that a Div 1 swim team might cost about $1M per year depending on the facilities costs. A university probably wouldn't consider an endowment or donation unless it was backed by a long-term contract - say ten years or more. The problem with donations is that the donors with big bucks aren't swimming fans. They want their name on the entrance to the football field or the weight room, not the natatorium.

What will happen to the swimmers???? Are they allowed to transfer? Does anyone know exactly how the decision is finalized to cut a men's swimming program? What happens if the swim teams, men and/or women, have their own "swimming funds" or some sort of "endowment funds"??? I think the school itself is still open. They can attend classes and get their degree, permitting them to pursue a prosperous career.

Jayhawk - oh, that avatar of yours, so shameful. Is this one better? It's our other pro baseball team, the Kansas City T-Bones. Their league includes Fargo-Moorhead, Gary, Joliet, Schaumburg, and Winnipeg. They were in the news recently for their short-lived theme night.... Posted: Saturday, April 19th 2008 at 1:19am T-Bones drop 'Vick Night' plans By The Associated Press KANSAS CITY - A minor league baseball team has dropped plans to hold a welcome party for Michael Vick. The Kansas City T-Bones of the Northern League had planned to have a Michael Vick "Welcome to the Neighborhood'' night May 28th, complete with prison uniforms, spotlights and escape sirens. Other events promoting caring for animals also were planned. Vick, the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback, is serving a 23-month sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in nearby Leavenworth after pleading guilty to federal charges related to dogfighting. After receiving complaints about the promotion, the club announced today that it will drop the Vick-related events and will focus only on events that promote animal safety and adoptions....

Football takes a huge number of athletes to field a team. Title IX, or rather... its draconian interpretation..., is absolutely a factor in this because schools are required to keep the number of male and female athletes in line. I'm an avowed feminist, and I scream at the top of my lungs that feminism is the "radical" notion that men and women are equal according to the law. But it's time that there be some give and take regarding Title IX's implementation. First, though, we must address the fact that boys/men are seriously lagging behind women in getting accepted to universities. In other words... the concentrated effort for equal rights has worked so well that men are actually falling behind women at the undergraduate level. En masse. Part of that is due to "male privilege" and laziness for some boys. But for minorities and lower economic class boys it has everything to do w/ major social issues that allow boys to fall off the college-bound track. In other words: whereas Title IX fought to make sure that women weren't getting short-changed when it comes to public funds, there now is a need to incorporate men in order to make sure they aren't getting short-changed. (Personally, I find it shocking to say that!) **To complicate these issues further: the trend begins to reverse itself when it comes to graduate education; and in the professorship ranks... it's still an Old Boys' Club w/ a major glass ceiling. I understand your point. But it sounds like you're talking high school academics, not sports or Title IX, when you're speaking of being "college bound." Perhaps girls, now having more opportunities, are just smarter or work harder. Boys seem to need better study habits. With respect to the Title IX issue, boys already have their fair share of athletic scholarships. They're not getting short changed. Maybe they should be systematically discouraged from playing football when young. (I never signed my son up for football and he's not socially or athletically hindered.) Besides, obsession with football can't be used as an excuse to bump girls from girl sports to enable boys to continue playing BOTH football and other boy sports at the collegiate level. You need to fix the American obsession with football. IT'S EQUITY AMONG SPORTS, not among men and women, that needs correction. But large universities fail to spread the wealth. And why should girls take the hit for football? Look how much men (like Smith) are screaming when they take the hit! And it's only of recent vintage for them. They've really not experienced much discrimination or suffered from glass ceilings. I don't see how penalizing women and effectively returning to the prior status quo advances the ball. It would only stop evilsmith's tantrums and erode progress women have made in sports. If football can't be de-prioritized, I don't think Dolphin 2's idea of sponsorship is so bad.

I'm not a great researcher but from what I can tell, only Vandy in your list above has ever had a men's swimming program. I could be wrong about this. I did not see any of the other above mentioned programs in any SEC results going back to 1937. Wait - Miss State did have a team in 1937 but I don't see them competing again after that. Guess all the water holes dried up in '38. Fearing some schools haven't been in the SEC since 1937 I have confirmed that Miss and Miss St were charter members back in 1932. Arkansas joined in 1991 from the SWC. I can't find any history of Arkansas men's swimming but that doesn't mean it didn't exist. SWC is a bit hard to dig up info on. I can offer a tiny bit on the SWC and Big 12. Texas Tech once had both men's and women's swimming. Now neither. Oklahoma had both too. Now neither. Rice and UH have just women's now. Never cared about Baylor so I have no idea.

The sad thing is there may be more to come with other schools. Swimming doesn't make money. Football is the cash cow Basketball and baseball do OK too Not baseball. The vast majority of football programs lose money b/c the over-head is exorbitant. But they are "loss leaders": a university simply will not make as much money from alumni w/o a football team. Some schools get by w/ a high-powered basketball team. That's what I'd opt for. Football, not Title IX, is the chief culprit. It's kind of a combo. Football takes a huge number of athletes to field a team. Title IX, or rather... its draconian interpretation..., is absolutely a factor in this because schools are required to keep the number of male and female athletes in line. I'm an avowed feminist, and I scream at the top of my lungs that feminism is the "radical" notion that men and women are equal according to the law. But it's time that there be some give and take regarding Title IX's implementation. First, though, we must address the fact that boys/men are seriously lagging behind women in getting accepted to universities. In other words... the concentrated effort for equal rights has worked so well that men are actually falling behind women at the undergraduate level. En masse. Part of that is due to "male privilege" and laziness for some boys. But for minorities and lower economic class boys it has everything to do w/ major social issues that allow boys to fall off the college-bound track. In other words: whereas Title IX fought to make sure that women weren't getting short-changed when it comes to public funds, there now is a need to incorporate men in order to make sure they aren't getting short-changed. (Personally, I find it shocking to say that!) **To complicate these issues further: the trend begins to reverse itself when it comes to graduate education; and in the professorship ranks... it's still an Old Boys' Club w/ a major glass ceiling.

Fort, have you ever considered the positive effect those football scholarships can have? How many of those scholarships are going to kids who can just barely get their test scores because the inner city schools are so bad? How many of them are giving kids a college education who otherwise wouldn't have had one? I can't speak for football, but I know for a fact that basketball scholarships have given a whole lot of kids a chance at a college education they would have never gotten were it not for basketball, I would assume that it is similar for the other big revenue sports though. Also, perhaps girls are smarter and perhaps boys are more inclined to athletics, if we are arbitrarily assigning traits to a sex, might as well tack that one on. You pointed this out in a previous discussion. I have no problem with giving inner city kids scholarships. But axing women's Olympic programs so that more men can play football for 4 years and then retire? Why is that desirable? And is there something wrong with women excelling or surpassing men? If men need football scholarships and all its accompanying overhead and expense, then there are just less slots for men in other sports. Really, men are not in such dire straits as women were years ago. Just cut the budget for men's football to have more men's sports!! Don't penalize women. I used the caveats "perhaps" and "seem" with reference to the boy-girl issue. I don't believe girls are less athletically inclined, although you do based on prior posts. If they are, or there is a perception that there is, it's at least partly socially instilled. All the more reason to keep women in sports to refute this inequitable stereotype. I'm sure this perception will be at least somewhat debunked 20 years from now .. the slow plodding nature of progress. I'm also just weary of the "oh woe is me" male attitude. "Male privilege," to use Carlos' term, is not the ultimate goal here. That apparently is a problem we're supposed to remedy, not reinforce. Just giving you the leftist feminist perspective here ...