Updated: with comments from Darton Athletic Director Michael Kiefer.
Darton State College, a Junior College and member of the NJCAA, informed its athletes this afternoon that the swim program was being dropped at the end of the academic year. The team was informed shortly after returning to campus from last weekend’s NJCAA National Championship meet, where the women placed 5th and the men placed 4th.
“In order to operate the athletic department in a fiscally feasible and sustainable manner the swimming, cross country, and wrestling programs are being transitioned to club sport organizations at DSC,” Athletics Director Michael Kiefer said of the decision.
Success in the pool has proven to not be a buffer for Junior Colleges. Daytona State College’s swim program was cut before the season despite also being one of the fastest programs in the nation. This is furthering the gap between the dominance of Indian River State College and the rest of the country at this meet. IRSC won all but two events at the recent NJCAA National Championships, with the exceptions being the 500 and 1650 freestyles.
Darton State College offers primarily two-year transfer and associated degrees and 49 certificate programs. NJCAA programs, with a maximum available 15 men’s and 15 women’s scholarships for swimming & diving programs, which make them the biggest pool of athletic scholarships for swimmers & divers among major American collegiate athletic systems. Darton, specifically, was not providing any athletic aid to its current swimmers or divers.
Like most Junior College programs, swimmers typically spent two years at Darton State College before transferring to a 4-year program.
The Darts have produced several NJCAA Champions, especially in their diving program – whose coach Drew Aultman was named NJCAA Diving Coach of the Year after his athletes won three of the four potential national titles in 2013.
Darton State College is located in Albany, Georgia.
As of yet, the DSC administration has not yet responded to a request for comment on reasons behind the cut or what the plan is for current student athletes.
This is too bad. It’s interesting that IRSC competes in the NJCAA and offers B.A degrees and scholarships???
This makes me really sad. I swam at Darton a few years back. Honestly, though, I’m surprised it took this long to happen. Our funding got cut more and more each year while I was there.
It seems like they would have saved more money by cutting more-expensive programs, such as baseball, basketball, softball, and soccer. How much, really, does it cost to operate a cross-country team? That’s one of the cheapest sports to run (see what I did there?). And they won’t wave a lot by cutting swimming, because they will still maintain and operate the natatorium.
No scholarships were available at Darton. Only a few out-of-state waivers for some of the out of state swimmers
Really too bad for Darton and their athletes. There are already so few opportunities to stay in state to swim here in Georgia. Out of state tuition is simply not affordable for many student athletes. Sad news.
Sad that there are less and less avenues for people to continue swimming into college. Just how much do these programs save each time they cut swimming?