Why I support college swimming!I gave $530 to the LMU pool last summer to help support their team. Soon, a brick will be dedicated at the pool with my eldest son's name carved on it. When you donate money to college swimming you are supporting programs that will elevate both swimming and the community at large in several different ways.
Three reasons why we should aggressively support college swimming:
1.) College swim teams provide outstanding pools for masters swimmers and those that want to be swimmers such as triathletes and kids.
At the time of this writing there are about 10 pools open in the city of L.A. available for club or masters swimming. (This excludes the Los Angeles Unified School District pools since they have their own schedules and priorities such as PE, water polo and school swim teams.)
L.A. has a population of nearly 4 million people and with 10 pools total to represent 400,000 citizens each, this is obviously not a big enough aquatics infrastructure to support quality club swimming. College pools, on the other hand, are more interested in both swim clubs and masters programs so more college pools means more quality pools for triathletes and clubs.
2.) College scholarship opportunities for like-minded athletes.
Cullen Jones; (pictured above), is tied with Gary Hall as my favorite sprinter. Cullen goes to North Carolina State University and is majoring in English with a minor in Psychology. Hailing out of Irvington, New Jersey, a town that has a 17.4% population which is below the poverty line, Cullen attends NCSU as a result of a swim scholarship.
It is looking pretty good that Cullen will be a member of the US Olympic Team come the 2008 Beijing Olympics and it wouldn't be a stretch to say that he may break Popov's 50 meter long course record between now and then. He would be the first American of African heritage to hold that record.
Swim teams are yet another sporting opportunity to get bright individuals into a cool university. Let's not allow these opportunities to fade.
3.) The sport itself, which includes future Olympians, master swimmers, swim clubs, triathletes and even sprint triathlons will evaporate if college teams fade away and pool construction halts. This is a variation of reason number one with the added threat of non-competing pools being converted for other real estate functions. If there are no teams, why own a pool?
What you can do? Donate to college swimming programs or withhold donations to schools that plan on dropping swim programs. Write or call the NCAA and demand that they defend all Olympic related sports especially swimming.
No comments:
Post a Comment