My AOL Instant Messenger interview with Mandy took place on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 7:00pm.

EricT: For today

Just now, John Young, Coach of Swimming at Davidson College, retweeted a post from BehindtheNCAA which links to an article by Gary Brown entitled: NCAA committees endorse swimsuit restrictions. (Whew!)

The article states that “The NCAA Divisions I, II and III Men

Through a Facebook wall post by Topping Point lead, Jack Kubacki (shameless promotion), I found a very interesting article: It Doesn

I don’t know what took so long (the college season ended months ago), but Purdue University’s Purdue Alumnus Magazine did a cover-story feature on David Boudia for their July/August 2009 issue.

I’d pretty much call myself a David Boudia fan, but I still learned something new from the article:

Boudia says by the age of 10 he was looking to replace gymnastics with a sport that fulfilled his need for

In my original post about the All Swimmers Unite Foundation, I expressed some concerns about the program serving up free handouts to college teams:

It sounds expensive, and my only concern is that the foundation will be viewed as a free handout. I think the foundation would serve as a great central resource for teaching college coaches, alumni, and athletes HOW to go about saving their team–rather than just throwing money at the problem. (original post)

I later got an email from the All Swimmers Unite Foundation addressing those very concerns. With permission, I’m posting a portion of the email I received:

“We understand your concerns, and would like to ensure you we will not be just a financial handout to colligate swimming teams. Our Foundation serves to support colligate teams through financial help to start and maintain their endowments, But we will also serve as a support platform for troubled teams to bring awareness and community support.”

Industry News from Swimming World Magazine yesterday posted some info on the new non-profit foundation known as All Swimmers Unite. The foundation, which officially launches today, was established “to support collegiate swim programs in their time of financial need so that current and future student athletes can continue to swim and attend college.” (source)

I think the foundation is a great idea. It circumvents a lack of alumni involvement or budget problems at any given university in order to help support college swimming in all divisions. According to their website, All Swimmers Unite has been growing their partnerships at a steady pace, and it looks as though they will be funding their mission through these partnerships.

It sounds expensive, and my only concern is that the foundation will be viewed as a free handout. I think the foundation would serve as a great central resource for teaching college coaches, alumni, and athletes HOW to go about saving their team–rather than just throwing money at the problem.

In any case, it’s great to see an organized entity like this come about in a time when universities are definitely feeling the financial pinch.

If you’re not familiar with the expression (and I’m paraphrasing) “you can use stats to say anything you want,” then take a look at how optimistic or bleak the college swimming participation and sponsorship numbers can be made to sound.

Throughout this post, I’ll be referring to statistics found in the 1981-1982 – 2007-2008 NCAA Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates Report prepared by Denise M. DeHass which was published in April 2009 (PDF found here).

I’ll support two opposite arguments as an example of how optimistic or troubling the same report can sound when you present selective information that is chosen to aid your original viewpoint. Each extreme side will serve as an example of how far you can push the stats to favor your argument. This will hopefully demonstrate my point, which is to ask yourself what is really being said, and what information is most important in the big picture.

Optimistic: College Swimming is Doing Better Than Ever!!
It’s been another record breaking year in the NCAA! Participation rates in NCAA Championship sports were at an all time high during the 2007-2008 school year, with 412,768 student athletes representing their universities in the classroom and on the playing field. Never before have so many students had the opportunity to engage in competitive athletics at the collegiate level.

Not only are students participating in NCAA Championship sports in record numbers, but sports programs in universities are on the rise. According to a 2009 report by the NCAA, “The number of women

Garrett McCaffrey posted a video on FloSwimming.org that has sparked a lot of discussion about college swimming program cuts. The video, a round table discussion held after the announcement that Arizona State University’s men’s program was going to be cut, features ASU’s Mike Chasson, with Eddie Reese, Jack Bauerle, Frank Busch, and Richard Quick.

Is this topic going to come up every spring? I hope not, but here we go again! That’s why this video is so poignant, and with the state of the economy, we have all the more reason to fear the axe-man.

I’ve included this graph that I found in a 2004 report prepared by the NCAA, which summarizes sport sponsorship and participation rates data related to the decline in sponsorship of Olympic sports (download the report as a PDF). I posted the Men’s Division 1 graph because it shows the most obvious decline, but as I mentioned in an earlier post “What Happened To My Conference?“, sponsorship declines can be seen in most divisions, but are skewed by small gains in others.

Hmmm… I’m gonna dig around some more and see if I can find some newer information. Check back for an updated report!