Foreigh Athletes in the NCAA

Interesting to me that Auburn limits their team to 25 swimmers. They should follow the example of Arizona and have 34. Let the in-state guys walk on and take a stab at proving themselves. College swimming is not professional swimming by the way. We should hope that colleges consider the diamonds in the rough. Nobody said the entire team had to be made up of all in-state guys, but you have to admit that 1 is pretty pathetic. Rest assured that if the Auburn football team had only 5% of its players from Alabama, the Trustees would be breathing down the coach's back, whatever the record. I bet it is not the coaches decision alone on how big the roster is. The athletic director sets a budget for the sport. Even if many of the athletes are walkons, there is a non-trivial cost to carrying an athlete on the team. Travel, equipment, insurance, etc. all add up. Eddie Reese seems to have the budget to carry 30+ on his roster. The Texas A&M coach told me he was targeted at 24-28 on the roster, including divers. Maybe Hill Taylor went to Texas because of uncertainty with Marsh. Do you know he wasn't recruited? He would be 2nd or 3rd fastest on the roster in backstroke.

Elise, have you compared the times of the international swimmers against those of the high school graduating classes the years the international swimmers joined? I am curious as to whether there is a gap and if so how large it is. Lindsay - I have no doubt the times of the international swimmers are faster. What is disturbing to me is that it appears that Auburn, our state land grant university, is unwillling to cultivate the talent we have here. I speak from personal experience. I coached a kid until he was 15 and sent him on to a bigger, faster USA team. He stayed in touch with me a good bit after he left and kept me filled in on his training, meets, etc. After only 4 years of competitive swimming, he was going a 1:49 in 200 yards backstroke. Despite being the home boy, Auburn showed absolutely no interest in him. His back was his best as his 200 free was only 1:41, although I believe he was going a high 23 in 50 meters LC free. Seems our boys find happier homes at Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas.

I bet Cesar Cielo gets 1 scholarship. That leaves 8.9 to be divided among the remaining 24 swimmers+divers. Nope. Cielo went pro.

These numbers may be off but hope you see the point... If there are 50,000 US men/women of college age who swim and would like to swim at a university or college. I'm assuming there are far fewer foreign swimmers of college age who swim and would like to swim at a US university or college, say 20,000. Why is it that a higher percentage of those foreign swimmers are of a higher caliber than the US swimmers enabling them to get the swimming scholarships? Maybe we should be looking at their coaching and training techniques.

Why is it that a higher percentage of those foreign swimmers are of a higher caliber than the US swimmers enabling them to get the swimming scholarships? There are about 300 million people in the U.S., but nearly 6 billion in the world. Yeah, only a small fraction of that total resides in countries with strong swimming teams, but the bottom line is you've got a much bigger talent pool to draw from when you look outside the U.S. I believe your premise that a higher percentage of foreign swimmers are of higher caliber than U.S. swimmers is flat out wrong.

If you are good enough to swim or play football for Auburn, you are good enough to swim or play for every single univesity program in the US. Plus, why in the world would anyone voluntarily stay in the state of Alabama? I'm from AL so I can say this.

Wait a minute. Is the job of the coach to try to cultivate talent within the state, or to try to put the best team together he can to try to win? At lower levels, people should be trying to develop talent and make sure the kids have fun. But I'm pretty sure that in college, they want the team to win. If the football team at Auburn went 4-8 and the coach said, "Yeah, we didn't win, but look at all of the local talent I cultivated!" I'm pretty sure he'd still get fired. Is swimming all that different? Do you think they'd give the coach a pass on having a sucky team just because he gave lots of scholarships to Alabama kids to try to cultivate them? Interesting to me that Auburn limits their team to 25 swimmers. They should follow the example of Arizona and have 34. Let the in-state guys walk on and take a stab at proving themselves. College swimming is not professional swimming by the way. We should hope that colleges consider the diamonds in the rough. Nobody said the entire team had to be made up of all in-state guys, but you have to admit that 1 is pretty pathetic. Rest assured that if the Auburn football team had only 5% of its players from Alabama, the Trustees would be breathing down the coach's neck, whatever the record.

I could care less anymore about foreign swimmers. But, the weird thing is that my former college coach seems to have more American swimmers on the team nowadays. I guess that some coaches like the foreign swimmers because they feel that they can control the foreigner, they won't talk back or push them in the pool(this guy on my former college team pushed the my former college coach in the pool after some argument over absolutely nothing. I think that the coach egged him on to kick him off the team).

If you are good enough to swim or play football for Auburn, you are good enough to swim or play for every single univesity program in the US. Plus, why in the world would anyone voluntarily stay in the state of Alabama? I'm from AL so I can say this. :rofl: Now, now geek. It's not so bad here. We've got mountains, the beach, lots of fattening barbecue, friendly people, and some great football teams.

Elise, have you compared the times of the international swimmers against those of the high school graduating classes the years the international swimmers joined? I am curious as to whether there is a gap and if so how large it is.