Women’s swimming

[Spider17]

Aren’t there Title IX considerations as well or has that changed with the new roster limits for each sport now?

 

[URFan1]

I certainly think we should be at least matching the top programs in our conference, otherwise we're trying to compete with one hand tied behind our backs.

I don't know how much uncertainty the House setttlement has introduced. Whereas before we knew the women's swim and dive scholarship cap was 14, now it's just a roster cap of 30 ands however much scholarship money you want to throw at those 30. There's no way anybody in the A-10 is giving 30, but has anybody gone above 14 yet? Is there an agreed-upon limit imposed by the A-10 that we don't know about?

And in this age of NIL, you have to wonder if it's better to invest scholarship plus NIL in a smaller number of athletes than scholarships for a larger number? Not saying this is in any way happening, but would it be better to give 16 swim scholarships or give 8 full scholarships and then also give those same 8 NIL packages of an additional $90k each? Same cost to the university, but I bet you could attract some pretty high-quality recruits with that kind of NIL. I don't know the answers, but have to imagine some programs out there will experiment.

But yes, we darn well should be at or very close to the old max of 14 scholarships like some of the other committed programs in our conference, and unless something has changed recently, we're not close to that.

Another formula, give 10 and divide the money from the remaining 4 ships as NIL for the 10

 

[SFspidur]

Aren’t there Title IX considerations as well or has that changed with the new roster limits for each sport now?

AFAIK, the applicability of Title IX to NIL hasn't been tested yet, and may depend on source (university vs donor funds). But clearly nobody appears to be adhering to any sort of proportionality with it.

It should still apply to scholarships and participants. There are certainly both men's and women's sports where we are lagging in scholarships, so we could continue to stay in balance.

 

[Wood Hall]

La Salle had some excellent women swimmers. So did Duquesne. I think some of them, given UR as an option with scholarship help were it available because we had 14 to give, would have chosen us over them. GW and Davidson had good swimmers too but it's sort of a wash between attending us or them.

Bottom line (to me) is, we have money but won't spend it. We're more interested in having an impressive-looking endowment than putting some of that money to actual use to improve the university.

 

[Arachnid]

The UR aquatics programs, including the men way back before termination, are covered by the theme “Always doing more with less.”
There are three sports UR could easily have national success just on basic demographics, swimming, golf and tennis. These are also lifetime individual sports. One can also add XC.

 

[SFspidur]

La Salle had some excellent women swimmers. So did Duquesne. I think some of them, given UR as an option with scholarship help were it available because we had 14 to give, would have chosen us over them. GW and Davidson had good swimmers too but it's sort of a wash between attending us or them.

Bottom line (to me) is, we have money but won't spend it. We're more interested in having an impressive-looking endowment than putting some of that money to actual use to improve the university.

La Salle mines the international market heavily...almost half their women's roster is from outside the U.S. It's not an uncommon strategy for swim programs, but not something we have ever done a lot of.

GW has been solid for a decade, and yes, they're invested strongly in their program. They did just have a close call where the university announced plans to close the pool in order to build a new basketball practice facility. The university didn't seem to have a good plan for where to move the team, initially saying they would cover an outdoor pool at their Mount Vernon campus a few miles away from the main campus and then saying they were close to an agreement to use an unnamed high-quality facility "less than 15 miles" from campus, which seemed absurd to expect that kind of daily travel. Anyway, they ended up backtracking on plans and are not closing the Smith Center pool.

Duquesne has also invested heavily and have been strong for a good number of years now.

Davidson has had a surprising (to me at least) decline. They used to be solid mid-pack and had finished as high as third in a few seasons, but they finished 9th this year, not all that far ahead of hapless SLU in the cellar.


One potential area of concern for the Spiders: We only got 10 individual event points out of our freshmen this year, the lowest of any team (yes, even SLU). The other three classes were very balanced. That also doesn't account for Blanchard's arrival, as she was a newcomer but slotted in as a junior.

Even with 125 points from our seniors heading out the door, we are still returning more points than any other team for next year, though. We have some decent freestylers coming in next year across the range of distances, but I'm less confident in the other strokes. GW had a strong frosh class this year, but the two classes ahead of them are only decent and they are losing a good amount to graduation, should still be solid though. Duquesne should return a good number of points. La Salle is losing a ton to graduation.

 

[Wood Hall]

La Salle mines the international market heavily...almost half their women's roster is from outside the U.S. It's not an uncommon strategy for swim programs, but not something we have ever done a lot of.

GW has been solid for a decade, and yes, they're invested strongly in their program. They did just have a close call where the university announced plans to close the pool in order to build a new basketball practice facility. The university didn't seem to have a good plan for where to move the team, initially saying they would cover an outdoor pool at their Mount Vernon campus a few miles away from the main campus and then saying they were close to an agreement to use an unnamed high-quality facility "less than 15 miles" from campus, which seemed absurd to expect that kind of daily travel. Anyway, they ended up backtracking on plans and are not closing the Smith Center pool.

Duquesne has also invested heavily and have been strong for a good number of years now.

Davidson has had a surprising (to me at least) decline. They used to be solid mid-pack and had finished as high as third in a few seasons, but they finished 9th this year, not all that far ahead of hapless SLU in the cellar.


One potential area of concern for the Spiders: We only got 10 individual event points out of our freshmen this year, the lowest of any team (yes, even SLU). The other three classes were very balanced. That also doesn't account for Blanchard's arrival, as she was a newcomer but slotted in as a junior.

Even with 125 points from our seniors heading out the door, we are still returning more points than any other team for next year, though. We have some decent freestylers coming in next year across the range of distances, but I'm less confident in the other strokes. GW had a strong frosh class this year, but the two classes ahead of them are only decent and they are losing a good amount to graduation, should still be solid though. Duquesne should return a good number of points. La Salle is losing a ton to graduation.

Sound like a wonderful time to invest more resources into our program. I'm sure Hardt and the BOT will get right on it because they are locked in to insuring our athletic success.

 

[SFspidur]

Sound like a wonderful time to invest more resources into our program. I'm sure Hardt and the BOT will get right on it because they are locked in to insuring our athletic success.

Once they find Mooney another $3m to spend first...