According to swiminfo.com (Wednesday Morning, November 9, 2011), the University of Maryland is considering dropping the men's & women's swimming and diving teams. This is very sad news for the UMD student-athletes who will be adversely affected by this move, and for swimming in general. One of the best aspects of competitive swimming for young student-athletes here in America is the prospect of going on to compete at the collegiate level, whether it be at a big Division I school, or a small Division III school.

According to a Washington Post report, the UMD Athletic Department, in defense of the move, claims it is going to lose approximately $4.7 million dollars across 10 sports. It's hard to believe that such a large school - with high profile basketball & football programs generating millions of dollars for the athletic department each year - could find themselves in such dire financial straits. Unfortunately, this is becoming all to commonplace in collegiate sports: high revenue generating, non-Olympic sports are allowed to operate on a budget larger than some small countries, while non-revenue generating Olympic sports (swimming & diving, gymnastics and track & field, etc...) wind up as casualties littering the college athletic landscape, simply because they can't cover their comparatively low operating expenses. Conventional wisdom says those operating expenses are simply a cost of doing business as an NCAA-sanctioned institution of higher education. It's too bad that the profits generated by those basketball & football programs can't cover the costs of the non-revenue generating programs.

Ironically, year after year the graduation rate for swimming & diving programs throughout the NCAA far exceeds that of popular "revenue generating" sports such as football & basketball. This seems to go against the grain of the very mission of the NCAA.

In the event some process is put in place to help save the UMD men's & women's swimming & diving programs, whether it be a fund to contribute to or a petition to sign, that information will be posted here. SMAC encourages all of its families and student-athletes to stay on top of this story as it unfolds. Email me if you have any questions.

EC
erikcollins19@gmail.com