Marquette University, an NCAA Division I school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is adding a women’s varsity swimming program as early as the 2025-2026 season. The school will not feature a diving program.
The team will compete in the Big East conference, where they will join Butler, UConn, Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, Villanova, and Xavier.
The school says that the addition was made as part of recommendations by the school’s Securing our Future recommendations as part of gender equity efforts. The school is targeting between 18 and 30 student-athletes on the roster.
“This decision strengthens our commitment to gender equity in athletics,” the school said in a press release. “By adding women’s swimming and adjusting team rosters in accordance with the pending settlement of the House case, we are aligning athletic opportunities more closely with the makeup of our undergraduate student body. These changes help ensure we remain in compliance with gender equity standards.”
According to federal data, approximately 56% of Marquette’s undergraduate student body (4,010 out of 7,160) are women, only 46% (154 out of 331) of its varsity athletes are women. The addition of a full women’s swimming roster of 30 athletes would lift the school to 51% female student-athletes.
The school is home to a brand new 195,000 square foot, $80 million sports and wellness facility that includes a six-lane, 25-yard pool, seating for nearly 150 spectators, and team locker rooms. While the team will host dual meets on campus, they will also have access to the famed Walter Schroeder Aquatics Center 20 minutes away to host larger invites off campus.
The addition of a women’s swimming team comes amid lagging enrollment and budget cuts at the school. In fall 2023, Marquette was about 450 students down from fall 2019 pre-pandemic, according to Forbes Magazine.
The women’s swimming program is Marquette’s 17th varsity sport; it last added sports in 2013, when the school launched men’s and women’s lacrosse programs. 9 out of the 17 sports are women’s sports, and the school does not sponsor a varsity football team – cutting it in 1960.
Marquette’s athletics program is best known for the success of its men’s basketball program, which won the 1977 NCAA National Championship, has three Final Four appearances, and has produced 39 NBA players – including current league stars like Jimmy Butler and Jae Crowder, basketball Hall of Famers Dwayne Wade, and likely future basketball Hall of Famer Doc Rivers. The school also has a renowned track & field and cross country program, producing 13 NCAA Champions and Olympic gold medal winning sprinter Ralph Metcalfe.
It will become the 4th NCAA Division I women’s swimming program in the state of Wisconsin, joining the University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin-Green Bay, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Marquette is a private, Catholic university and currently costs around $52,000 per year in tuition for undergraduates.
2025 Big East Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships – Final Standings
- Villanova – 1,588
- UConn – 1,516
- Xavier – 1,167
- Georgetown – 1,040
- Seton Hall – 845
- Butler – 570
- Providence – 475
No offense but Marquette’s “new” pool was outdated about 60 yr. ago. A 6 lane pool was cutting edge about the same time narrow lanes were in basketball.
Colleges: “We will give you a new swim team and a new pool.”
Swimming: “Make it a double-bigger pool or we pass”
It’s weird how much heat the AD at Cal Poly is saying for “funding your program isn’t good enough, we need you to fund double your program’s budget” when that’s exactly what the response from this comment section has been to this news.
This is why we cant have nice things. They’d get a 50m pool and ask, well where’s the second one? For a single gender team, which is the pitch here, a 6 lane pool is feasible.
Nailed it, Braden.
Sure, it’s humble by college swim standards (it is). But hey, ANY college that is BUILDING a pool and ADDING a program should be championed and appreciated. Go Marquette!
Awesome to see another D1 swimming school added.
Think there is any chance Marquette throws a lot of money at someone like Tony Bruno at Towson? Has championship pedigree from his stop at Fairfield. And while being a male swimmer, had Brian Benzing out perform anything he did before Tony’s arrival and after Benzing left Towson.
If Marquette wanted to make a splash they certainly could look to hire him away to work single gender (I believe most of his championships with Fairfield were the women’s team).
He’s absolutely crushed the towson rebuild, which was a tall task
Exactly. Sometimes you have to tear a program down to build it back stronger!
I concur, however Tony may be a little past his prime, feel like this needs a younger coaches touch
No, I don’t think there’s any chance that Marquette throws a lot of money at anyone.
I would guess this is a 60-65k job, at best, when it begins. Coach will need to get to 30 roster spots in a hurry. Will probably have a few scholarships, not a ton.
No inside info, that’s just what I suspect.
How come they can afford a swim team and Michigan State can’t?
Because they are private university as opposed to a state school and they do not have a football team. In addition, they want to allocate their resources differently.
It’s crazy that they were only at 46% female student athletes without a football team.
MSU had a hang $ over from Dr. sex abuse lawsuit?
As the article infers, the proportionality prong of Title IX is the driver for just adding women’s swimming, but it is a fascinating decision. From a cost perspective, probably not too crazy to add men’s swimming, but that would not balance % male/female related to Title IX. So why didn’t they add a different sport that didn’t have an obvious male counterpart? Was this the cheapest solution? Not likely… I find it fascinating. I love swimming and happy they did it, but would be good to know why they went in this direction and not in another potentially cheaper way, and really publicize that so maybe a few other schools join in…
Rumor is they’re going big. Looking at Jonah Turner. Why do you think Yuri left? He can’t compete with Jonah. Jonah only needs 2 lanes and a pickleball court. They have six. Wisconsin swimming will never be the same if they get Jonah
A certain former Boston College coach would be a perfect fit here as long as he doesn’t trust issues with the Jesuits.
Joe is happy where he is right now.
I get why they’re not adding the mens program, but still would like to see it. More of this regardless for college athletics. We should be adding more sports, not dropping them.