Ohio State Swim Club Suspends Operations For 2020-2021 Season

The Ohio State Swim Club, an age group club affiliated with the Big Ten college, is suspending its operations amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The club actually posted the announcement last month, citing COVID-19 restrictions on campus. The Ohio State Swim Club trains out of the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion on the Ohio State campus. Here’s the full text of the announcement:

Due to the COVID-19 situation in our community and as Ohio State continues to work through the plan for fall semester we have made the difficult decision to suspend regular Ohio State Swim Club operations for the 2020-2021 season and to encourage you to contact other swim clubs about joining their teams. At the current time we cannot accommodate competitive teams with the restrictions necessary on our campus to combat COVID-19. Therefore, we want you to be able to seek alternative options that work for your family.

We are having discussions about ways we can stay connected during this time. We will let you know as those plans are possible.

While we share in your disappointment, we want to assure you that this decision was not made lightly.

Go Bucks!

While many clubs have resumed training, the OSSC situation highlights the difficulty some clubs will have in finding pool space with the pandemic continuing into the fall season. College campuses across the country have reopened, but most with strict coronavirus testing guidelines. And colleges have worked to quarantine their campuses to try to prevent the spread of COVID-19 into the student body.

The OSSC announcement came well before the Big Ten’s decision to cancel collegiate sports in the conference this fall. The Big Ten, along with the Pac-12 and several other major conferences, will look to play fall sports in the spring. Decisions on winter sports (like swimming & diving) should be coming later this fall, and it’s unclear how the postponement of fall sports will affect fall competition in swimming.

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Done Before
4 years ago

This was announced about 6 weeks ago, so there was plenty of notice given.

However, people are missing the point in why OSU Rec Sports via OSU Administratiom made this call. It was due to the 60k students, and additional 15k Faculty and staff that are also not all completely on campus due to implementing a large degree of virtual learning. Which seems like they could be forced, soon, to move kids completely off campus, including dorms because their positive test rate is 6%!!!

So if a 8B budget institution is telling its good paying customers (students) and employees we are primairly staying remote because we have too many people, too many facilities, too many risks in a small area… Read more »

Greg
Reply to  Done Before
4 years ago

While not a popular decision in the youth sport community, this answer is 100% correct. My employer has the same stance, just not cancelling the entire academic year (yet?). My employer is evaluating daily as the numbers rise and fall.

Frankie 5 Angels
4 years ago

Columbus sounds like a mess, first the Central Ohio YMCAs shut down their teams for this winter, now one of the bigger programs shuts down. Where will all these swimmers train?

Meeeeeee
4 years ago

Teams in SE Michigan some swimmers are joining teams in Toledo. Hoping they open pools this week

KRW
4 years ago

Pulling the rug out from under these kids is unconscionable. There are protocols to follow to make the programs safe. This has been done all over the country. Incredibly short sighted and closed minded.

KRW
4 years ago

Gutless pathetic response. Club should disband and never operate again. Clearly they do not have the guts or desire to make it work. Multiple programs countrywide are making it work. OSU administration of the club lacks vision, desire and operational knowledge to implement working processes that make the kids safe. So lets just shut it down.

John
Reply to  KRW
4 years ago

They need a pool, not guys

Buddy
Reply to  KRW
4 years ago

I think you’re forgetting that some things are out of their control. They rent a pool from the university with 50k+ students and a top tier college team

Guerra
4 years ago

The coronabros strike again… The woke Big 10 commissioner and the school presidents are a disgrace!

Meet Mobilemom
4 years ago

Sadly, another blow for age group swimming. Already declining in popularity, covid19 could be the death knell for this and other sports.

TerpFan
4 years ago

Are there any post grads/pros there (swimmers or divers) and if so how does this effect them?

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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