The CSCAA-led proposal to remake the NCAA Division I Swimming & Diving Championship format is on the agenda for the NCAA Sports Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
If the committee chooses to vote, that vote would be binding, and could reframe the qualifications for, and format of, future NCAA Swimming & Diving Championship meets, but Samantha Barany, head of the Collegiate Swimming & Diving Coaches’ Association (CSCAA) says that a vote is not guaranteed.
“The NCAA recently approved a new governance structure,” she said. “There is a possibility that this vote, along with others, could be tabled until the new committees are populated.”
The NCAA’s new governance structure creates sport-specific committee that have authority governing conduct of athletics personnel, playing and practice seasons, recruiting rules, and Division I playing rules and championship administration.
While these committees already exist in football and men’s and women’s basketball, the new structure is bringing them to all NCAA sports. The goal is to “ensure coaches have a voice in decisions about their sports,” Barany says, including designated seats for a coaches’ association representative on each sport’s oversight committee.
On Wednesday, Barany will present her organization’s new plan to the committee. Among the major components of the proposal includes changing the schedule to increase the excitement of the final day of competition, splitting diving to lessen the number of rounds of diving that split up finals sessions of swimming, dropping B Finals and scoring 9th-16th place out of prelims, and creating automatic qualification opportunities for conference champions – specifically from mid-major conferences.
“It is hard to speculate exactly how it will go because there are so many possibilities,” Barany said of whether there was any signaling as to the committee’s opinion on the proposal.
Definitely should add the 50s (now that they are Olympic events) and the 100 IM (fun race to watch).
If ESPN can show cornhole live, they should be able to produce an exciting NCAA champ broadcast.
Take caffeine off the banned list
Maybe but excessive amount of caffeine in a person can be fatal! So perhaps slightly raise the allowable level of the drug in one’s system.
Good luck getting any increase in viewership if the meet continues to be on ESPN with poor production quality
Someone pitch Hard Knocks: NCAA swimming to HBO.
How to make the NCAA meet more exciting, spectator friendly and appealing to the masses?
Combine M&W NCAA
Each gender team size of 12 or less – Score M, W and Combined
Add underwater races and relays.
Add the stroke 50 races
Eliminate 1650 – Boring except to swim junkies – Slows meet to a sleep fest
Eliminate diving OR In finals feature 3 dives per finalist – It slows down the meet momentum to a crawl
Enact gambling lines on winners, winning times, etc with the “Las Vegas Partnership”
OK keep on doing the boring swimming meet format as NCAA and USA Swimming slip into oblivion…all you downvotes are so smart and spot on with your little club of swim gangsters.
Bring on NCAA flag football, NCAA Texas Hold Em tournaments and other spectator enjoyable events!
I know you’re trolling BUT I do think there’s something swimming could learn from Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments.
I cannot think of something more boring to watch in person than poker. BUT they have made it a viable TV product by adding extreme access and tons of data: the two things that swimming, for whatever reason, has been historically loathe to do.
Maybe there’s a version of this where you cut the commentary team but the coaches are mic’ed up the entire meet that works…
I love some of MigBike’s ideas.
Combine men and women and score separate and together
Smaller number of competitors per team. 15 each sounds reasonable
I support eliminating diving or separating it off
4 full days
B finals in session before A finals (and I’m not concerned about swimmers being tired, that’s part of the coaching and planning)
Relays score triple (I think they are the most exciting party of most meets)
Run it tight with no awards so it can be 90m on live TV
Yes the second post was a trollerooski.
The initial post is a serious attempt to shake the tree of normalcy and pedestrian thinking.
Obviously the sport of swimming must change for it to become more mainstream and viable to the next generations.
Sitting on the sidelines in the back of the bleachers pulling for our sport!
Can collegiate coaches fight this? There is NOTHING good about this proposal
You’re assuming that D1 coaches aren’t in support of it. The CSCAA would not have put this forward with out support from the coaching body.
They’re trying to fix the wrong problem by modifying an event that doesn’t need to get touched.
Problem is swimming is boring and we don’t have millions of fans watching regular season dual meets, generating interest in swimming.
The solution is not to blow up the most objective championship that truly pits the fastest swimmers in college against each other for a 4 day championship. Championship swimming is not made for casual TV. We [swimswam types] are going to watch the whole thing start to finish anyway. Your casual fan needs the 2 hour highlight package that they already do.
You aren’t improving swimming by taking away kids’ chances in the B-finals, by inviting small conference champions at the expense… Read more »
Solid summary.
I feel college divers are told they aren’t welcome to the party – “splitting diving to lessen the number of rounds of diving that split up finals sessions of swimming” is wrong. The divers only do three rounds of diving during the finals which is only forty minutes in length. They deserve to be a part of the spotlight during the championship finals and the swim teams need the points. Look at how many points the divers have given to Indiana University, Texas and Purdue.
It’s always tough with diving because it is a different sport. It just happens to occur in a pool and back in the olden days there were even less separate diving wells than there are now. Pool time has a cost so you lump the two together from an admin perspective. If you think about it they have less in common as sports than speed staking and figure staking do and people would look at you funny if you said “those really should be scored together at competitions”. Track events and field events are pretty different, though the heptathlon and decathlon bridge it somewhat while also demonstrating how specialization matters. If swimming and diving were run like track meets where… Read more »
Agreed – spin it off on it’s own.
If diving survives great! If not so sad!