Partnership Between USA Swimming, NCAA to Revolutionize College Swimming Record-Keeping

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado, September 18. USA Swimming announced today with the following press release that it has partnered with the NCAA to improve the accuracy and reporting process for collegiate swimming results. The partnership, which kicks off in October, will utilize USA Swimming's staff, volunteers and database to create a central clearing house for all Division I swimming results. The new system will also offer these programs the ability to register online for the NCAA Championships. It is believed to be the first partnership of its kind between the NCAA and a national governing body.

"Collegiate swimming for years has desired a credible and national database for times," said Joni Comstock, NCAA senior vice president of championships. "Once we gained knowledge of the USA Swimming database, it was a matter of us asking ‘Can we blend our goal with your system?'

"The resulting partnership is a great example of the NCAA working with a national governing body to achieve a mutually desired outcome."

"Developing a mutually beneficial database certainly addresses a practical need," said NCAA President Myles Brand. "But the effort represents much more than that. The outreach from USA Swimming is a welcome contribution at a time when the NCAA is seeking to strengthen its relationships with Olympic sport governing bodies. Through such collaboration, the sport of swimming not only receives an important benefit, but also a better relationship between its two most important entities."

USA Swimming will maintain the results in its central database, SWIMS, which also keeps career statistics for U.S. National Team athletes. NCAA member institutions will be asked to upload results to USA Swimming within 48 hours of the completion of each competition. An updated list of top times will be posted weekly at both usaswimming.org and ncaa.com. At the end of the season, all Division I programs will be able to enter USA Swimming's National Championships via an on-line entry system.

"As two organizations that are organically linked, this partnership made sense both for its historical value and for the benefit it provides to our shared member groups," said Chuck Wielgus, USA Swimming's Executive Director. "We see this sort of collaboration serving as a model for other Olympic sports."

Plans are underway to expand this to Divisions II and III in the future.

Special thanks to USA Swimming for contributing this report.

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