Georgia Tech will host the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships for the seventh time when the event takes place February 17-21, 2026, the conference announced Wednesday.
Greensboro has hosted the last three championship meets, and seven out of the last eight, but Atlanta intermittently hosts – especially when it is hosting the NCAA Championship meet in the same year, as it will in 2026. The two sites have been the only ACC Championship hosts since Virginia Tech hosted in 2012.
The Yellow Jackets’ venue, the McAuley Aquatic Center, has hosted ACC championships in 2005, 2008, 2011, 2015, 2017, and 2022. Georgia Tech has been one of the most frequent hosts of NCAA championships, most recently hosting both the men’s and women’s meets in 2022.
The pool is best known for hosting the 1996 Olympics, where it housed swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, and modern pentathlon events.
As previously announced, Georgia Tech will host another multi-day event next season, with a knockout-style dual meet tournament scheduled for October 17–18. The format will feature Georgia Tech and seven other teams: NC State, Auburn, Minnesota, Georgia, Army, Florida State, and George Washington.
The facility completed a $1.4 million renovation this past August, funded by donors and letterwinners. The upgrades include modernized visual displays throughout the space, 78 state-of-the-art lockers for student-athletes, new coaches’ locker rooms and lounges, renovated restrooms and showers, and new stonhard epoxy flooring.
In 2016, Georgia Tech decided to honor James Herbert “Herb” McAuley by renaming the facility after him. McAuley graduated in 1947 with an electrical engineering degree and spent four decades coaching swimmers at Tech. He’s best remembered for teaching the dreaded “drown-proofing” class that every undergraduate had to survive.
The facility’s specifications make it one of the premier aquatic venues in the nation. The competition pool measures 50 meters by 10 lanes with two movable bulkheads that allow courses to be configured for 25 yards, 25 meters, or 30 meters for water polo. The pool features a movable floor adjustable from zero depth to seven feet, eight inches. The dive pool includes one- and three-meter springboards plus one-, three-, five-, seven-and-a-half-, and 10-meter platforms, with a Spargar system that sends bubbles from the bottom of the tank to ease water entry.
The center currently accommodates approximately 1,900 spectators.
Poor decision by the ACC the GAC is the best venue in the country for athletes
Like most conferences, if a conference pool is hosting the NCAA Championships, they host ACCs in the same pool. Makes sense to get athletes used to the facility and the flow.
Speaking of the 2026 NCAA meets, is there any update on the qualifying standards?
D2 was announced, but I haven’t seen D1.
Its a shame LA is not getting a 1st class permanent aquatic facility for the 28 Olympics – the temporary pools are great, but they dosn’t leave a facility in place for after the event. West coast needs a quality indoor facility like Ga Tech other than Federal Way.
Long Beach could have done it with their new Belmont pool but the city caved to community complaints and the cost to make the pool fully indoors was astronomical. I will be shocked and pleasantly surprised if the pool is completed by the 2028 Olympics.