Virginia State High School Meet On Verge of Cancellation

FAIRFAX, Virginia, January 11. ACCORDING to recent reports out of Virginia, the State High School Championships meet scheduled Feb. 9-10 at George Mason University is very much in danger of being canceled.

In what seems to be a blame game where the various entities involved keep pointing the finger at each other instead of truly coming together in the best interest of the close to 600 swimmers representing upwards of 70 high schools, a conflict between the Northern and Northwest Regions has led to the meet having no director or staff with less than a month to go.

At the heart of the argument is the meet rotation schedule, where each Region in the state is afforded the chance to host the meet as part of an agreed upon rotation. This year, the Northwest Region is in charge of hosting the event, but has not successfully staffed the event with a director or crew yet.

On a positive note, Virginia High School League Assistant Director Tom Dolan (no relation to the Olympic gold medalist) has stated that he is willing to look at all other potential venues, regardless of how well they meet the hosting requirements.

"We are obviously not where we are ready to say that we are not ready to have it, but we are getting closer than we have ever been with a state event," said Dolan. "If someone from the beach area were to call me and say ‘we are willing to run the event and everyone needs to realize that this will be in a pool that is a fraction short because of a construction error,' am I going to say ‘No?' Heck no. I'm going to say ‘guess what guys? We are going to Virginia Beach.' While we may have some broken records because [the pool is] two inches short, we are going to have a meet."

Hopefully, everyone involved in the blame game will cool their heads and fix this problem before Virginia High School Swimming lets this year go by uncontested.

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