Georgia Tech has released its 2025-2026 swimming & diving rosters, which feature a dramatically pared-back list of 16 men and 22 women, including incoming freshmen. This confirms persistent offseason rumors that the school mandated a significant reduction in swimming & diving roster sizes even beyond the 30 men and 30 women mandated by the settlement in the landmark House vs. NCAA case.
Last season’s roster shows 34 men and 36 women, meaning the men’s roster was cut by over 50%.
Of those 70 swimmers on the roster last season, 16 exhausted their eligibility (8 men and 8 women). The 2025-2026 roster includes just 2 freshmen men and 3 freshmen women.
SwimSwam reached out to the school’s new head coach John Ames, formerly the school’s diving coach, to discuss his vision for the future of the program. Instead, a spokesperson responded that “coach respectfully declines to be interviewed on the topic” and instead provided a statement on behalf of Georgia Tech Athletics:
Georgia Tech took a strategic approach to how it would address the resolution of House v. NCAA, with the goal of continuing to provide student-athletes with a world-class athletic and academic experience, and the opportunity to compete at the highest level. Like many athletic programs across the country, the approach included roster-size reductions. We remain committed to strategically investing in all of our sports, and will continue to monitor the landscape of this ever-changing environment.
According to the USA Today, Georgia Tech was the 44th-largest NCAA athletics department by revenue among schools with public data for the 2023 fiscal year. Covering that budget included $11.8 million in allocated money from outside of the athletics department, namely student fees and other money allocated by the university at large.
That ranks Georgia Tech 7th among the ACCs public institutions, one spot behind Virginia Tech and one spot ahead of NC State. NC State’s listed 2025-2026 roster includes 27 women and 26 men.
The Georgia Tech men finished 9th out of 15 teams at last year’s ACC Championship meet (which included beating two diving-only squads in Miami and Notre Dame). Only 14 men scored at last year’s ACC Championship meet, with seven other participating athletes not picking up points.
The women’s team finished 13th out of 15 teams with only six women scoring individually.
That means the new reduced roster sizes are big enough to cover the number of scoring athletes the team had at last year’s championship meets, though it does reduce the margins of error to finding those athletes.
The school also currently has only four paid coaches on staff: head coach/diving coach John Ames, “Swim Training and Recruiting Coordinator” Iago Moussalem, assistant coach Melanie Margalis, and assistant coach Miles Simon.
Margalis, an Olympic gold medalist, and Miles Simon, an NCAA qualifier for Howard University and Georgia, are both new additions to this year’s staff after most of last year’s staff found other jobs. The program also has two volunteer assistants listed: Yun Qu and Justin Yuan. After a recent rules change, volunteer assistants carry the same rights and responsibilities as other coaches on staff, they just don’t get paid.
Georgia Tech announced the hiring of a new athletics director Ryan Alpert on July 8, but the roster limit decisions were made under J Batt, who was hired away in June by Michigan State. Alpert was previously a deputy athletic director at the University of Tennessee, where he oversaw a huge increase in revenue for the Volunteers. The department raised $228 million in fiscal year 2024, the most in school history.
Georgia Tech is scheduled to host the 2026 NCAA Championships in the on campus McAuley Aquatic Center, which has a seating capacity of 1,900. The pool was built to host to swimming events at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Swim club teams should stop doing meets at GA Tech.
So who exactly is in charge?
The President and Commander-in-Chief.
I find this most interesting since GT is still one of the few sites for conference & NCAA Championships… wonder if they still will host NC’s if the team is no longer around
The NCAA pulled the 2021 Men’s Championships from Iowa after they cut their team, so I suspect the same would be the case if GT did it.
I’m sure the alumni who just spent $1.4m last year to upgrade the locker rooms are happy to see their investment is being put to good use.
https://ramblinwreck.com/swimming-and-diving-unveils-locker-room-renovation/
of course because now each swimmer can have 2 lockers
Just two days ago, congress voted to give $500B in “aid” to an extremely wealthy country. Imagine what $500B could do for NCAA Division 1 Olympic athletics
Disappointed in athletics for not considering how this may impact the athletes, their dedication to the sport, and how they handled the cuts. They told the athletes in the fall 2024 thy would cap at 30/30. Sliced he team after NCAAS. Disappointed but not shocked. I’m grateful for the experiences the athletes did have. Grant House likely did not have any idea how this would play out. It was a perfect storm.
House clearly doesn’t care about who this affects. If he did, he would have fought for non-revenue sports—but instead, he chose to focus solely on what benefited him.
Without giving away too much, I do know that the roster caps for the SEC men is going to further reduce going into 2026-27. I know this because my wife is in athletics admin, and have been told several schools are discussing different sports that have to make deeper cuts. Women’s should be okay, but men’s swimming will disappear in next few years.
Everyone needs to start building up the college club programs especially for men.
Why reduce the 22 men limit further? Schools can still choose to support fewer athletes and scholarships if they want, just as GT has chosen to do.
I HATE GRANT HOUSE
Hate on the AD not House. They have plenty of money to keep their team. Stop paying football players a salary and just give them their NIL earning.
GaTech is “keeping their team” in a fiduciary sound and forward viewing optic.
This move, while controversial and misunderstood by most, is truly brilliant.
Do you hear the words coming out of your own mouth
As a matter of fact, I am typing on this thread, not speaking out loud. Most of the downvotes reflect a shallow and myopic thinking. Listen to me now and hear me later will be the case when the NCAA, Conferences and universities adopt many of the ideas presented in my comments.
It helps one’s serenity to learn to dance to the tune of change.
Not fighting for something isn’t called learning to deal with change. It’s called being a sheep. Seems with all your wisdom, you maybe would hold such a high position you wouldn’t have time comment on a swim board with concerned swimmers, coaches and parents.
Baaa, Baaaaa spake the sheep.
“It is what it is and it is not what it is not” Parmenides the Ancient Greek Philosopher.
Thank you for complimenting my “wisdom”, but alas I am nobody and lesser than the least of people.