Union Commonwealth University in Barbourville, Kentucky has cut its men’s and women’s swimming program, students were informed last weekend. The school has not made any official announcements and has declined to respond to multiple requests for comment.
- The school was formerly known as Union College, but is currently undergoing a rebrand to Union Commonwealth University.
The announcement comes after a historic season for the program, with the men finishing 10th at the NAIA National Championships and the women finishing 9th.
The program has a long history of success at the NAIA level, including a national title on men’s 1-meter in 1965 from Bob Long, and three NAIA titles on the women’s side: Renata Cabral in the 100 free in 2012, Jessica Axford in the 200 free in 2018, and Jessica Axford again in the 50 free in 2019.
The program is led by Ryan Winders. He has been an assistant professor at Union since 2018, longer than his three-season tenure as head swim coach, working in the education department.
Prior to taking over as head swim coach in November 2021, he was the head coach of the Waterford Waverunners, an assistant coach with the Lexington Dolphins, and as the head swim coach at Lexington Christian Academy for 14 years.
The men’s team finished as high as 6th at the NAIA National Championships in recent seasons, repeating the feat in 2019, 2015, and 2014. They were also Appalachian Swimming Conference Champions in 2019. The women also have multiple top-10 finishes in the last two decades.
Union is a liberal arts school that lists a student body of approximately 1,000 undergrads and 200 grad students, with two-thirds of them coming from the state of Kentucky. This conflicts with federal data that shows undergraduate enrollment of 682.
In either case, this is a decrease from 15 years ago, when the school listed enrollment of almost 1,400, in line with the trend of small liberal arts schools across the country.
The school currently lists 16 men and 12 women on the swimming roster.
Prior to this cut, the school listed 10 men’s sports, 10 women’s sports, and 2 coed sports, making it one of the more robust NAIA athletics departments in the country.
Federal data shows that approximately 59% of the university’s undergraduates are varsity student-athletes.
The school has a 10-lane, 50-meter pool on campus that was opened in 2012 and renovated in 2018.
This not only cut the College swim team but has potentially cut several of the High School teams from the area. Laurel county (both Schools), Whitley (possibly have another pool), and Knox counties that don’t have their own pools. This was their practice pool, and 2 state Regions had their regional meets at this facility. Not to mention the USA swimming club team (Bull Dog Aquatics) which had some swimmers coming from Virginia to practice 4 days a week. This is only 1 of 4 Olympic size pools in the state, as I understand it. Such a waste to close it, are there not grants, sponsors, etc. that can help keep this facility open?
Very sad. We visited and considered Union for the diving program. Good people and nice facilities. Sad for the athletes and coaches. Unfortunately, it was pretty clear during our visit that Union is struggling.
They have old pool 25yards on campus. President doesn’t want to renew it.
The 50 meter pool they had was amazing. Too bad they sold off the pool.
One step further in the right direction. Love to see it.
So you want programs to be dropped? That’s an odd side to be on?
This sucks
Love all my Union people 🥲
I interviewed there a while ago. Such a cool place. RIP
The facility has been sold off (at least a deal has been reached) to the city school system and will be converted to either a multipurpose facility or a vocational center. The school was losing significant money annually on the pool.
So the pool might be gone (replaced by something else)?
Could they not have worked out an agreement that the college team could still have used the pool.
Not at the rate the facility was losing money.