On October 22nd of last year (2020), Bill Beekman, who was then the Athletic Director at Michigan State, announced that the university would be eliminating the men’s and women’s swimming & diving programs following the 2020-2021 season. The announced led the creation of “Battle to Save Michigan State Swim & Dive,” a group whose purpose is to get the men’s and women’s programs reinstated.
The group announced Wednesday that they will be launching their latest campaign today, during the MSU Homecoming Parade. The “Centennial Comeback” campaign, which is focused on reinstating the men’s swim & dive team for its 100th season, will kick off at the parade, with 39 members of the eliminated programs, plus alumni and supporters, walking the parade route wearing t-shirts supporting the cause.
According to Battle To Save MSU Swim & Dive, the campaign will put supporters in contact with MSU president Samuel Stanley, as well as the Board of Trustees. Over the past year, the group expressed that they were experiencing difficulty in communicating with Bill Beekman, who recently stepped down as the Athletic Director.
While the group is dedicated to reinstating both the men’s and women’s programs, the thrust of this new campaign is focused on the men’s team. The Centennial Comeback campaign is so-named because the Michigan State men’s swim & dive would have been entering its 100th season this fall, which would have been a historic mark for NCAA swim & dive programs. Meanwhile, the women’s swim & dive team is currently locked in a legal battle over Title IX. If the team were to be reinstated, the women’s program would be entering it 52nd season.
In their Wednesday press release, Battle to Save MSU Swim & Dive included some of its basic arguments for the reinstatement of the programs. One such argument is that the swim & dive programs were responsible for “1.5% of the Athletic Department’s budget,” despite serving 9% of the student athletes. Another argument the group is putting forward is that “MSU Swimming & Diving is consistently one of the university’s top academic programs. In the spring 2020 semester, the women’s team had a GPA of 3.86, while the men’s was 3.82, including 16 athletes with 4.0s for the semester. The group also points out that nearly half of MSU’s winter sport Academic All-Big Ten athletes were swim & dive members.
The new campaign will also be highlighting the plans for a proposed new pool, which are being proposed by MSU’s Recreation Sports and Fitness Services. RSFS is set to introduce the proposal for an updated recreation facility on October 29th to the Board of Trustees. The aquatic component of the proposal is expected to include a new 50-meter pool, as well as new diving accommodations. Battle to Save MSU Swim & Dive argues that a new 50-meter pool would not only encourage the reinstatement of the swim & dive programs, but it would also open up the potential for new aquatics club activities for the school, and use of the facilities by local club teams.
You can read the full press release from Battle to Save MSU Swim & Dive here.
Sadly, their antiquated facility was never upgraded and in fact, permitted (by many administrations) to fall into disrepair ….. And as the losses mounted, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy of eventual dropping.
None of this is the fault of the athletes, families and coaches involved in the program. Like Iowa and others, the administration simply stopped caring about swimming and diving. When the pandemic struck, like Iowa, it was “Sweet! Now we can finally get rid of that program for this reason, like we’ve wanted all along.”
I sure hope this happens! It was a shame this even happened !!
My dad swam at MSU from 61-64…
Bring back the glory of Michigan State swimming 1959 National AAU champion- host of the Pan American games
stars like Walsh, Scholes and Patterson
I agree. But I don’t think the coaching staff did themselves any favors. I was at their facility for a camp for my son (actually same day Katie Hoff got married there) and I knew about their historic past so i went looking for it in their trophy cases. I found it. But it all looked like it was put there in the 50’s and 60’s and never touched again. an inch of dust, dead bugs, faded pictures and yellowed paper that was torn. And this was directly across from the coaches offices on the 2nd floor. My thinking was if they don’t care enough about their past, I can’t believe they put much thought into their future.
As an MSU alumn who played club sports in the aquatic facilities enough: It’s sad. The IM center is an absolute joke and should’ve been renovated half a decade ago, it’s in such bad shape. The pool is a joke and a large portion is the back and forth of “the team is bad so why improve the facilities, but the facilities are bad because the team won’t improve”. The old HC stunk and given that the facilities were horrid compared to every other B1G program (hell even Oakland is nicer) MSU was always stuck trying to get the guys who’d be down on the offer lists at other schools as well. I’d love for the program to be back,… Read more »
Exactly right.