WAC Awards UTRGV Conference Championship Rights, But Warns School to Clean Up the Air

The Western Athletic Conference has given an ultimatum to UTRGV, the scheduled host of the 2024 WAC Conference Swimming & Diving Championships: clean up the air quality in the Pharr Natatorium, or the conference will look for a new host.

For more than a decade, the WAC rented pools from outside of the conference to host their conference championship meets – including 6 of the 7 championships from 2016 through 2022 at the University of Houston.

But after the Pharr Natatorium opened in the spring of 2022, a partnership between UTRGV, the City of Pharr, and the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District, the conference was able to host the 2023 championship in a conference pool for the first time since 1991 when Hawaii hosted the meet in Honolulu (aside from 2021, the post-COVID year where teams were keen to stay closer to home, and so the swimming portion of the meet was hosted at UNLV, while diving was hosted by Northern Arizona).

UTRGV doesn’t currently sponsor a swimming and diving program, but will add women’s swimming & diving for the 2024-2025 season.

The facility features a 50-meter main competition pool and a separate diving pool with springboards and platforms. A full complement of diving platforms allows the conference to host the whole meet in one facility.

While the pool is a much-needed jewelpiece for a South Texas region, just miles from the border with Mexico, that does not have a ton of competitive swimming infrastructure, complaints poured into the conference office after February’s championships from athletes, coaches, and staff members. Symptoms included burning eyes and difficulty breathing. At least one official reportedly had to go to an emergency room due to the effects of the air quality.

On May 5, the WAC sent the school a letter awarding them the 2024 championships, but saying that it was “contingent on improvement of the air quality conditions to a healthy level.” The letter also requested that the school send the conference office a specific plan to address the issues.

“We understand that you are aware of the concerns and are working toward creating solutions that would bring the air quality to a level that is healthy for all,” the letter reads.

“Friday, the air quality wasn’t great, we were affected mostly with Friday night’s sleep,” Northern Arizona head coach Andy Johns told myRGV.com. “Some people were affected a lot more than others, everybody had different issues and were affected differently.”

• Read more statements from coaches and the UTRGV president on the issue here.

While air quality issues are nothing new in swimming, as  meets have grown larger, the problems have been exacerbated as more swimmers create more chloramines in the air. Chloramines are the result of the chlorine in pools interacting with perspiration, makeup, and other chemicals in pool water, and are the compounds that give pools their familiar smell.

More swimmers in pools results in more chloramines being released into the air, which lowers pool quality.

More significantly, coaches and athletes have become more aware of how poor air quality can impact their health and performance, and they have begun to put more pressure on pool operators to deal with the problem – both by improving pre-swim hygiene requirements and by improving air circulation at indoor natatoriums.

Last year, UNLV won the men’s conference title in a 6 team field while Northern Arizona won the women’s title in an 8 team field.