The College of Charleston made the decision in early November to eliminate the swimming & diving program from the university following the completion of the 2014-2015 season, however the team is fighting to stay alive and recently found facilities that they could officially train at.
According to CofC swimmer Chris Lietzow there are communications happening between the team and local pools in order to work out committing practice time to the team. Currently there have been a few facilities who have given official and unofficial agreements allowing the team to train out of their facility.
The other advance is that there are hopes for a full-sized Natatorium to be built in the Charleston area with much of the community behind the decision. With no set timeline behind the building of the Natatorium, the goal would be to use the local pool facilities that they’ve been approaching until the Natatorium is up and running.
The team is planning to set up a meeting with president Glen McConnell and athletic director Joe Hull in order to persuade them that the program can survive with the short-term solution of using local pools until the Natatorium is built.
The decision to cut the program was also based primarily on budgeting claiming that it was completely unaffordable to keep the pool and the team.
Other than men’s Track and Field/ Cross Country team and the women’s Beach Volleyball team, Swimming has the least yearly spending in comparison to the total 20 teams on campus.
They are close to the bottom in spending per athlete, and recent data has shown that CofC has the funds to keep the program running.
With the recent data, the topic of funding along with the short-term plans for the program will most likely come up when a meeting is reached.
As for now, the CofC team is continuing to find solutions in order to keep the team running.
Check out all the data below.
Yes, Billy Buck, my son had hopes of swimming with the CofC swim team as well. The minute we received the e-mail from the coach that the swim team was being disbanded, CofC was off the table for him. He is a swimmer with Scholastic All-American cuts as a 10th grader, headed for some Jr Nat. cuts in two weeks. Although his father is a CofC alumni, he won’t even consider attending and not swimming. Sadly for CofC, he will move on. I hope that the grass roots effort to save the team works. I just hope it’s not too late for my son.
Interesting points made here. I WAS a Cougars Club member for many years. After The AD’S debacle with the basketball team aI dropped my membership and refused to buy season tickets until the mess was cleaned up.
Earl Grant was hired and I liked was I saw in this man and coach so I was ready to rejoin the club. That is until the decision was made to drop the swim team. So I have not purchased tickets or joined the Cougar club.
My son had hopes of swimming at the College as well.
Is there not a band out there called New Direction?… Read more »
That is what our C of C sports program needs a little of…..
this is great information presented. great job!
however, joe hull has mentioned in several articles that money seems not to be the issue. if the community were to raise the approximate $1.5 million for the pool or to move to an off-site location for free, c of c/joe hull would still not bring swimming/diving back.
that said, i would approach this situation not from the “how much it costs” perspective, but rather the “how much will be lost” perspective.
i.e. what is the possible financial loss to the school from members on the team who pay tuition?
what is the financial loss to the community who will have to spend $thousands on training, etc qualified life guards, summer league… Read more »
Along the same lines, emphasize the loss of alumni support if the program is cut. I assume just like other smaller D1 institutions that alumni contributions supply a portion of operational funds for athletic teams. If the team could find the numbers (or at least a percentage) that the swimming and diving contribute in fundraising, which could possibly be withdrawn from losing the team, then that might speak volumes to the value of this program.