This is an article about a college swimming program that has been cut. If you are interested in helping to save college swimming for future generations, please support Swim Blogs United and GoFor5.org as we try and keep college swimming, $5 at a time!
On July 20th, we reported that the Big West Conference would drop swimming as a sponsored sport, and that the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation would accept the women’s programs as part of it’s new women’s swimming sports sponsorship.
But that still left the men’s programs orphaned, with an uncertain home headed into the 2010-2011 season. Luckily, the Pac-10 Conference has jumped in and picked up 2 of the men’s programs as “affiliate members” beginning in the 2010-2011 season.
The University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Cal Poly men’s programs will immediately begin as part of the Pac-10 Conference. The conference used an expedited email vote to accept the two programs ahead of their October conference meeting. This allows the two programs to enter the season certain of their future conference affiliation.
The University of the Pacific is the only former member of the Big West that remains without a home for its men’s swim team.
UCSB has been the reigning powerhouse of the Big West Conference, and have won 26 of the last 34 Big West titles. Cal Poly was third in the Big West (out of 5 teams), and is a rapidly improving program.
Although neither program will immediately compete for Pac-10 titles, both programs are on the rise, and in the long term should be competitive.
UCSB is in a prime position to become a swimming powerhouse, given it’s history of dominance in it’s conference. The University is also in the process of designing and building a brand new, top-of-the-line aquatics facility to replace it’s current 60-year old program.
This, combined with it’s location in the heart of California swimming country and it’s new-found home in one of the nation’s premier swimming conferences, leaves the Gauchos with a bright future.
Cal Poly last year had it’s first ever Division 1 NCAA qualifier in the form of Peter Kline. Kline finished as high as 21st place in the 400 IM. Kline recently placed 25th in the same on event on the first day of the USA-Swimming Long Course National Championships.
Between Kline and fellow senior Matt Waggoner, the Mustangs will return 4 defending conference champions, and will only lose 1 swimmer off of their roster (Adam Morales) to graduation.
Both programs have a strong foundation in place to grow and flourish within the Pac-10. It’s not clear if these additions are in any way connected to the Pac-10’s desire to grow and expand the size of the conference overall–before the 2012 season, they will expand to 12 full-time members after the addition of Colorado and Utah. The Conference is looking to expand it’s market territory, and has recently unveiled a new logo (seen above), a new website, and a new name (Pac-12) indicating a new era in the conference’s history. Colorado does not have a swim program, but Utah fields both men’s and women’s teams.
With the addition of these two programs, and Utah, the Pac-10 will have 8 men’ s swimming programs.
