What role, if any, should USMS play in saving college swimming? How about USA Swimming? Are either currently doing anything about the shrinking base? What can they do?
Aside from the participants themselves (including coaches), both institutions seem to be the greatest benefactors of keeping college swimming around:
USA Swimming benefits because its membership believes it has the ability to earn a scholarship or admission to a college or university that they might not otherwise. They may continue in the sport when there is the belief that they may be rewarded down the road. Some may continue training for significant International competition while not losing time on their education by competing and training while in college.
US Masters Swimming benefits because they have a significantly larger recruitment base because of existing college swimming programs.
While everyone here has a passionate interest in swimming, the defense of swimming needs to be mindful of the larger context.
College swimming is supported by colleges, and colleges are facing the kind of trouble that only can be created by a large group of apparently smart people. Here's a good summary of some of the problems they face:
www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2011021104924.html
In partcular, Part 7 observes:
Critics say the top division of the nonprofit National Collegiate Athletic Association increasingly resembles for-profit entertainment, with million-dollar coaches and ever-lengthening seasons. Some schools have only a small percentage of students engaged in athletics, and athletes only nominally engaged in education.
"You're not providing students with the opportunity to play sports. You're bringing students in to pay money to watch sports," said Margaret Miller, a professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Virginia.
Ninety-seven schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision spent an average $84,446 per athlete on their athletic programs in 2008, while spending $13,349 per student on academics, according to a 2010 report by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
Excuse me? $84,446 per athlete? Versus $13K for an academic student? At these rates, athletics start to look like the parasites that threaten to kill an already weakened host. If the rationale for perserving swimming is to perserve scholarships, then those kinds of numbers seem to make that rationale unattainable if not unreasonable. Rather, college and high school swimming presents its most compelling "value proposition" to the degree it can give more kids an opportunity to participate rather than watch, and to the degree it can be thrifty. Maybe that's why swimming teams are being cut at a faster rate at Division I schools than at Division III schools.
While everyone here has a passionate interest in swimming, the defense of swimming needs to be mindful of the larger context.
College swimming is supported by colleges, and colleges are facing the kind of trouble that only can be created by a large group of apparently smart people. Here's a good summary of some of the problems they face:
www.washingtonpost.com/.../AR2011021104924.html
In partcular, Part 7 observes:
Critics say the top division of the nonprofit National Collegiate Athletic Association increasingly resembles for-profit entertainment, with million-dollar coaches and ever-lengthening seasons. Some schools have only a small percentage of students engaged in athletics, and athletes only nominally engaged in education.
"You're not providing students with the opportunity to play sports. You're bringing students in to pay money to watch sports," said Margaret Miller, a professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Virginia.
Ninety-seven schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision spent an average $84,446 per athlete on their athletic programs in 2008, while spending $13,349 per student on academics, according to a 2010 report by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
Excuse me? $84,446 per athlete? Versus $13K for an academic student? At these rates, athletics start to look like the parasites that threaten to kill an already weakened host. If the rationale for perserving swimming is to perserve scholarships, then those kinds of numbers seem to make that rationale unattainable if not unreasonable. Rather, college and high school swimming presents its most compelling "value proposition" to the degree it can give more kids an opportunity to participate rather than watch, and to the degree it can be thrifty. Maybe that's why swimming teams are being cut at a faster rate at Division I schools than at Division III schools.
