Towson Suspends Swimming & Diving Athletes for Violation of Team Rules

Towson University has suspended several members of its swimming & diving program over violations of COVID-19 protocols.

The school confirmed the suspensions but have not responded to a request for more information, including what the violation was. The spokesperson said that it was specifically a violation of swimming & diving team rules rather than athletic department rules.

Two other sources tell SwimSwam that “at least 15” members of the program have been suspended. Some of those suspensions are as short as 2 weeks, while 2 members of the team have been removed from the team for the remainder of the semester.

At least one impacted athlete is being required to participate in mandatory daily screenings prior to 8AM, though we could not confirm if that was also being assessed for the rest of the suspended athletes.

Towson is the latest of many Division I programs that have been forced to suspend student athletes for violations of coronavirus-safety protocols, mostly surrounding attending large parties.

The University of Denver suspended 38 swimmers and divers in September, and Delaware suspended 19 and cut at least 3 swimmers from the team after a party in September. Delaware, like Towson, is in the CAA conference.

In addition to those suspensions, multiple teams have had to shut down practices because of outbreaks, and there have been unconfirmed reports of other schools issuing suspensions to athletes for violating protocols.

Towson has not yet announced a schedule for the 2020-2021 season, though the CAA said earlier this year that all of its conference teams intend to participate in a conference championship event at some point during the academic year.

Towson University, located in Towson, Maryland. The school announced 2 weeks ago that the first two weeks of the spring term would be conducted via remote instructions and that face-to-face and hybrid instruction will be held on campus starting February 8. Approximately 85% of classes during the spring term will be offered remotely.

All classes are being held remotely in the fall 2020 term.

In the most recent reported 14 day period from October 7 through 21, Towson University administered 689 coronavirus tests to students and 176 coronavirus tests to faculty and staff. Of those, only 1, a member of the faculty or staff, was positive.

Overall, the school has had 437 positive tests among students and 46 among faculty and staff among a total listed enrollment of 22,709.

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The Swim Guy
3 years ago

So has James Shrum been fried yet? Asking for a friend…

Augie Busch’s Beer
3 years ago

#FireJamesShrum

Actual alumni
Reply to  Augie Busch’s Beer
3 years ago

For enforcing team policies?

Augie Busch’s Beer
Reply to  Actual alumni
3 years ago

Sorry for your loss 4 years wasted swimming on the Towson swim team. Hopefully you’re paying prospective recruits well😘

Actual Alumni
Reply to  Augie Busch’s Beer
3 years ago

No reason to apologize. I loved my 4 years Swimming for Towson. I had great experiences, friendships and classes. I could not have imagined a better college experience. I am sorry for whatever happened to you that made you dislike the program so much that you would call for the firing of a great person and coach like Jake.

Richard
3 years ago

Seems to me this Towson team would like to be kids/followers and adults/leaders when it’s convenient to support their agenda. A great recipe for having your team cut. When the “you know what hits the fan” let’s blame the coaches. I’m sure the coaches encouraged you to break protocols/team rules….wink, wink!

Anonymous
3 years ago

Team has become toxic unfortunately and work needs to be made to rework the roster and that coaching staff needs to begin working on that. In order to have a clean, positive culture they need to let some people go. For information getting leaked to SwimSwam shows ppl on this team want the program to go down. Speaking facts here💯

meeeee
Reply to  Braden Keith
3 years ago

Braden, assuming you don’t have children of that age. They are adults by age, but children by experience and the ability to do what you are stating they should (i.e., pulling together, changing culture, doing the right thing, etc). If your kids aren’t that old yet, you will see what I mean in the future.

TUAlum
Reply to  meeeee
3 years ago

Braden could not be any more right about the athletes need to be the one to change the culture. That has always been the struggle at Towson. There are the people that want to take the program to the next level and then the people that just want to say they are a college athlete but not try to get better to try to win team conference titles and score points at NCAA’s. ALWAYS THE STRUGGLE!!!

meeeee
you sound like a parent of a current swimmer…At some point you need to let them learn how to be an adult and stop always trying to fight there battles. If you never let them deal adult problems they will always be… Read more »

Leenky
3 years ago

From what it sounds like the Towson swim team needs to start actually acting like a team. It won’t do you any good when you can all finally practice together, but don’t have sportsmanship.

ElvisVB
3 years ago

At least they didn’t put a camera in the women’s locker room…..

swimfan210_
3 years ago

There are two sides to every story. Of course COVID is a problem, and people need to do something about it. At this rate, it almost seems like the pandemic will never get better, and people are going to have to learn what to do about it. Strict and unfair discipline will never work the way you want it to, it won’t teach people to do the right thing and it could hurt everyone in the end. A good solution would be to build a small pod where the students can safely interact, which is what they did. This was not the first time this happened and it will not be the last.

SwimFL
3 years ago

Kids don’t understand that anything can be used as ammunition to cut programs. Why risk it for some fun? Because they think they are invincible.

Biggie
Reply to  SwimFL
3 years ago

Towson is in a spot where they can’t cut teams without promoting teams, at least on men’s side, otherwise they lose D1 status for not offering enough sports. So the kids were still wrong in this situation but technically speaking, the team is nearly invincible.

Swim3057
Reply to  Biggie
3 years ago

Not so fast…..the NCAA has passed a new policy allowing schools to drop below NCAA minimum sport sponsorship levels to deal with COVID related financial issues on campuses. The waiver will allow for up to 3 years before having to comply again. No non revenue sport is safe in the short term.

Last edited 3 years ago by Swim3057

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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