California Polytechnic State University has launched a renewed campaign to help revive its swimming and diving program. The initiative, confirmed to SwimSwam late Wednesday evening by the organizers of “Save Cal Poly Swim and Dive,” has been titled “The Final Push.”
All donors to the original campaign have been refunded, and a new GoFundMe has been posted, with funds now directed toward legal and strategic expenses, public awareness efforts, and any reinstatement-related costs approved by a committee of current and former swimmers and divers.
- You can view the new GoFundMe by clicking here.
The GoFundMe reads:
“My name is Sofia Vargas. Both my brother, Camilo Vargas, and I were proud members of the Cal Poly Swim and Dive team. As many of you know, this program meant the world to us and to countless other student-athletes who called the Anderson Aquatic Center home.
“We are also the current owners of the @savecpswimdive Instagram account managed by a committee of fellow Cal Poly swimmers and divers.
“When we first launched this fundraiser, we promised to return all donations if the team was reinstated. Since reinstatement has not happened, all previous donations have been returned.
“But our fight is not over. We are relaunching this campaign to fund the next phase of our efforts to bring back the Cal Poly Swim and Dive team by Fall 2025. This time, we are asking for your support to help us cover the real costs of making that goal possible.”
As a refresher, Cal Poly President Jeffrey D. Armstrong announced Monday that the original efforts to save the school’s swim & dive program fell well short and therefore, the teams would not be revived.
“While I appreciate the significant annual support and revocable bequests that have been identified, the fundraising effort has fallen well short of the goal to reinstate the program,” Armstrong said Monday. “As a result, the university is unable to reinstate the swimming and diving programs.”
After initially giving the Save Cal Poly Swim & Dive group a $25 million benchmark to save the program, Armstrong revised the goal to $20 million less than two months ago.
As of early May, the group had raised around $7.5 million, and one source told SwimSwam the number ultimately reached $10 million.
The endowment return on the $10 million raised would more than cover the budget shortfall Armstrong said the school incurred due to the House settlement ($450,000 annually).
The swim & dive teams were cut in early March, with Coach Don Oberhelman, who recently retired, informing the team of the decision, which Armstrong said stemmed from “financial realities,” specifically citing the House case.
The swim & dive program was the only athletic team to get axed, with Cal Poly saying it was chosen over other sports due to a “combination of factors, including conference stability, lack of current investment from alumni and donors, and the gap in current funding to be competitive vs. what is presently afforded.”
Immensely admirable but destined to fail. When bad people are in charge they’ll be smug and dishonest throughout the process, refusing to admit they were wrong while clutching the agenda
My daughter goes to Cal Poly. Lots of kids from Seattle are going now. One of the main attractions is the “learn by doing” structure. These kids are practicing exactly what the university preaches and should be lauded for it.
The supposed adults in the room are behaving like children. Having seen the politically-driven, rigid policies and communication from the school over the years, it’s sadly not surprising.
The new athletic department environment is dramatically weighted toward football and basketball, but those are not and never will be rock-stars at Cal Poly.
Non-revenue sports funding themselves is going to be an outcome, and these kids and supporters are doing it – just what Cal Poly purports to preach.
Why try? Cal Poly doesn’t want the team – their leadership has been clear about this. Go to a place where you are wanted, not a place where you are not.
Silly comment. Smart students pick the best fit and academics. Why should they have to go to an inferior school to also be an athlete?
Because the entire institutional already does not support them. Join the club team if it matters that much
Having watched this play out at Eastern Michigan and then in the Iowa/MSU cuts I’ve arrived to a very cynical place. In Eastern’s case, Kevin Doak and other alumni leaders heard enough to believe there was hope. In retrospect, reinstating the program created “Title IX” math problems the university had already moved on from. Had the program been saved another men’s program would’ve immediately needed to die.
At Iowa the AD blamed COVID, but when teams were back in action that fall the team’s didn’t return. At MSU, Thomas Munley and others had carrots floated in front of them for months to years including special meetings with trustees that went nowhere.
The conclusion that I’ve arrived at is short of… Read more »
Unfortunately, this is very true. It’s really sad.
This is going to get mad downvotes, I accept.
Athletic departments have to have next year’s budgets submitted in the next couple weeks. To think they can reinstate the team by Fall 2025 is…unfortunately not reasonable. It feels like this is a futile effort and honestly might lead to these kids committing fraud (are they committing to give the money back again?).
This is a business now, athletic directors are need to run their departments like a business. The money is moving away from our sport and into football, because that’s where revenue is. This is likely the first domino to fall for Olympic sports (not a hot take, a pretty cold take these days). Schools are choosing which… Read more »
Sounds like someone who is friends with the CP athletic department. Are you actually insinuating these swimmers have the potential to commit fraud? Seriously? After all they have already been through and the efforts they have put forward? They just refunded almost 100K… Doesn’t sound like a potential fraudulent group to me. That’s an extremely bold and disgusting statement. Have a little empathy. They are doing all they can to swim again. And all you’re doing is making gross accusations against college students that had their dreams ripped away… There’s a place for people like you. Revoke your comment.
How much does an NCAA swimming and diving program cost per year? It would seem that 10 million dollars would be more than enough for a fairly long time. It would also seem to me that the college is not serious about saving the program.
No, it never was. And it was never about the money. It was a vendetta, many years in the making. Since Phil became head coach and parents were aware of the issues that the AD (his buddy) didn’t want to hear, but had no say in the suspension. He had already been threatening to cut the men’s team if he heard any more complaints from the parents. And on it went, just getting worse. Now the AD is gone and the president (his buddy) is not happy about it. It’s the old boys network at work.
This is what leads me to believe the school was never actually going to allow reinstatement. 10 million would make enough money for them to skim off the top and fund a very significant chunk of the program, with minimal investment from the university. With continued fundraising, it wouldn’t seem unreasonable for them to have a fully-funded program within a few years.
The $25 million figure wasn’t born out of some in depth financial analysis, and it had no connection to what it would actually costs to run the program over the long-term. It was just the AD setting a price he knew they couldn’t meet.
Cal poly stated it costs them $850K/year for swim & dive. All in, everything included.
Absolutely ridiculous if that’s the case. You can easily make 850k a year on 10 million invested. Were they expecting swim and dive to fund another program too?