US Masters Involvement in Saving College Swimming

My :2cents:: Outside of a few states or regions, college and high school swimming are doomed. Why? With budgets tight everywhere, it is an easy "discretionary" cut to make - and even I would advocate for keeping two math teachers over the school team. For the major colleges, the football boosters are strong enough to ensure that the big sports stick around. But I fear for all of the minor sports, whether they disappear because they don't generate enough revenue, because the facilities are too expensive to maintain, Title IX, etc etc. Swimming is actually a sport that will probably suffer less than others - club swimming has a strong tradition in this country, and so college age athletes will simply train with the local club near their school. Other sports - which may have a weaker "club" structure - may be in worse shape. The challenge for clubs will be their business model. Again, with local finances strained, and apparently no appetite for voters to support much beyond tax cuts, clubs will find their local pools under threat of closure. Time to figure out how to take over operations from the local city or parks & rec department, and run the pool "profitably" themselves!

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.

College sports should be part of a well rounded university education. Students should be encouraged to become proficient in several sports. Competition should be part of this education. It should not be considered for it's money making ability. Professional athletes should not be brought in to enhance a college's image. Sorry, I'm an old fashioned thinker.

Remove scholarships from all sports. Pay coaches professor wages. All TV revenue above program costs go into class room instruction. Students who don't have a B average can't compete. Colleges shouldn't be in the sports business. Ok,that won't fly. Accept that greed from football lunkheads will doom swimming.

These are affluent towns too we're talking about. It's all the impoverished inner city schools that have the teams (numbers, but not usually skill) and the pools. As a teacher in an "impoverished inner city school" I find that laughable. Where do impoverished city schools get the money to maintain pools? Doesn't impoverished mean "without money"? My city has shut down every single public pool and our one high school pool was shut down years ago due to at least a decade's worth of deferred maintenance finally coming home to roost. Maybe CT is different from MA.

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 Ignoring the standard lazy anti-intellectual gibe, I found the article was interesting though oversimplifying in some ways (which is to be expected in a short newspaper article, of course). I agree with many of the sentiments in section 7, though I don't know if a cap would be a good solution. I have said before in other threads on this forum that (IMO) college athletics as it currently practiced is at odds with the institutional mission of universities. Especially big-time college athletics. I definitely think that athletics have a place on college campuses. I just don't think their role should be any more prominent (or subsidized) than, say, that of the visual and performing arts. Universities should use athletic fees to improve (and increase access to) facilities that are available to all students: better gyms and pools, intramural sports, etc etc. Big-time college athletics bear a large portion of the blame for the current situation. The NBA and NFL treat NCAA athletics as a de facto minor league, rather than developing their own. College presidents, administrators and fund-raisers are entranced by the additional exposure and revenue that successful athletic programs bring. College swimming is such a minor player in this; cutting those programs will not solve any problems. Larger institutional reform is needed and I don't see it happening anytime soon. Getting back to the original question: I don't know that USMS would make much of a difference at all in saving varsity college swimming. And think about this: while varsity swimming is shrinking, club college swimming appears to be growing to fill the void. Aren't the motivations of the participants of club swimming more closely aligned with those of USMS members? Shouldn't we be looking to increase our exposure with that crowd? They aren't "serious" swimmers by the standards of varsity athletes, but they are probably also much less likely to suffer from burnout and possibly head straight into USMS. Let USA-Swimming get involved in the fight to save varsity swim teams; they have more of a dog in that fight. I think USMS would do better to target university club programs: we would get better bang for our buck, and there are certainly plenty of challenges in doing that (most club swimmers I know are much more interested in fraternizing with, and competing against, other college club swimmers rather than the typical masters swimmer). Just my :2cents:

I agree, Chris. And, like you said on another thread about scholarships and universities, I have to agree there too. Although I benefitted from an athletic scholarship I have more and more reason to question whether an academic institution is serving its own or its students' best interests by focusing so much on athletics. The situation with football has gotten entirely out of hand. I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about whether some Division II or III schools may be offering a better education than Division I schools nowadays since they aren't as corrupted by big time athletic money.

At some point I wonder when college football and men's basketball come crashing down. The University of Texas athletic department is the worst (or is it best?) offender in the escalation of money spent, and money generated. UTexas athletic department had over $145M in revenue last year. That could be a wonderful thing to have so much money. But UT leads the nation in spending on college football. When I was a student in the old SWC (Texas A&M), OU, Texas Tech, Rice, etc. all had men's and women's swim teams. Now in the Big 12 only three schools have men's swimming (six women's programs). The problem is that schools like Texas Tech and OU devote a greater percentage of their budget to football - to keep up with UT. Both are large public schools, but have relatively few other sports. Tech only funds six men's sports (I count cross country and track as one) and only seven women's sports. Tech doesn't have the alumni base, nor TV draw, to generate signficantly more revenue. UT acts without any regard to anyone else. They now have their own TV channel with ESPN - so their revenue will go up again. They'll pay Mack Brown even more than his $5M salary today. The continue to push spending up in all areas, and the schools that want to play football are under even greater pressure. I am a capitalist at heart - so I understand the idea that UT is acting in its own best interests and doesn't really care if other schools suffer. But the NCAA is sitting around watching all the money roll in and is doing nothing to make college sports more accessible instead of less. I much prefer college football to pro - but when it costs $75 or more just for a college game ticket, I lose interest quickly in going to the stadium. As a student in the late 70s an A&M game ticket cost me $15 - very affordable then. I was only paying for myself. But to take my family to a college game now it costs half a thousand with tickets and food. It is worth it only occasionally. If I were a billionaire, I would not give any money to football. I might endow the swimming program for 20 years, but football wouldn't get a dime.