What They Are Saying About The February Swimming World Magazine; Sneak Peek At March Cover

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FRISCO, TEXAS – This is one of your best issues ever, and I really enjoyed reading it.

First of all, I totally agree with the sentiments expressed by Casey Barrett in the opening editorial. But the practical question is: what can be done about reforming FINA or getting around it by setting up a new organization? How does the FINA Executive Council and its leader get elected/appointed? What would an effort from the grassroots look like? Count me in!

Annie Grevers’s swimming world article about “Strength from Tragedy” told some inspiring stories. Please get her to write more for SW.

And it was great to have the full story of Fran Crippen laid out, so that we can all appreciate just what a tragedy this was and what the role of FINA has been in ignoring its implications.

Jeff Comming’s assessment of Ryan Lochte’s struggles is excellent also. Lochte’s realization that he should concentrate more on shorter races and do less but more high quality yardage is reminiscent of what Dara Torres talked about in her book “Age Is Just a Number.”

I really enjoyed the profile of Joe Bernal. This is an excellent feature overall. How could I not like it as a Princeton swimmer from that era? I would recommend as a candidate for the future my Princeton coach, Bob Clotworthy. You can read about him in my history, pp. 26-33:

I also like the “Up & Coming” feature and have a candidate for you, another 14-year-old female swimmer, Gabrielle Kopenski from Texas Ford Aquatics and Prosper High School, who set a new Junior Nationals record in the 1650 free in 15:56+ and just yesterday smashed the Region III UIL records for the 200 free (1:47+) and 400 free (4:46+) in times that would have won the Texas state meet last year (and will very likely win them this year). She earlier went 4:42+ in the 500 at the Minneapolis Grand Prix Arena meet. Her teammate at TFA and Prosper, Destiny Nelson, who has committed to USC, won two other events–the 200 IM (2:00+) and 100 back (54+)–bettering her own state championship times in those events from last year in the meet yesterday also. The two of them will make a big splash at the state meet in two weeks, I’m sure. Ironically, Prosper High School doesn’t even have a pool!

I always learn a lot from Rod Havriluk’s column about stroke techniques, and this time it was a revelation to find out that the very popular catch-up freestyle drill (which is used for us masters swimmers at Texas Ford Aquatics) is not such a good exercise after all. I’ll be passing this along to my coach there, Chris Rowe (who was Rowdy Gaines’s roommate at Auburn–and looks like him!).

Get you copy of the February 2015 Issue of Swimming World Magazine now!

Finally, George Block’s caveats about the dangers to collegiate swimming from the reforms the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences are now undertaking are very much needed. But one interesting unintended consequence that Block does not seem to realize is that, if scholarships for swimming are cut way back, the chief beneficiaries may be the Ivy League schools, which do not give such scholarships anyway but yet remain attractive places for good swimmers to compete. They might be able to increase their chances of getting some of the best (if they are also the brightest!) student athletes if they do not have to compete with scholarship-granting schools, like Stanford (whose women’s coach was a former assistant at Princeton). Then collegiate swimming might revert to what it looked like in the early part of the 20th century, and even up through the Kiphuth era at Yale in the 1950s and early 1960s, when schools like Yale and Princeton were regularly in the top ten nationally. In 1962, for instance, Princeton placed 5th in the NCAA Championship while Yale was 8th and Harvard 13th. In 1963, Yale was 2nd, Princeton tied for 9th, and Harvard 10th. In 1964, Yale was 3rd and Princeton 9th.

Indeed, collegiate swimming was invented by the Ivy schools, and their traditions extend back for over 100 years. Yale’s program began in 1898, Princeton’s in 1904. And even today they remain prominent in the sport. The current CSCAA rankings have Harvard at #4, Princeton at #10, and Yale at #24: In last year’s national recruiting class, Harvard got the #1 ranked high school male swimmer while Princeton got the #3, #9, and #19 recruits. So it is evident that there are enough top swimmers who are also top students to make recruiting on a national scale viable for the Ivies. They have an advantage also in having more money to give in financial aid for needy students than other schools do. Indeed, Harvard and Princeton both give their aid in the form of grants only, not loans, so students can graduate debt free. If Stanford, which has been at or near the top in swimming for a long while, were to discontinue athletic scholarships, say, the Ivies would be prime beneficiaries. And this would be even more true for a place like UT-Austin, currently ranked #2, which could not compete as well on the financial aid side.

Would the Ivies cut sports too? Not likely. Since they do not plow a lot of money into football and basketball, with mega-salaries for coaches, do not have lucrative TV contracts, and do not even attend bowl games in football, yet are still able to support more sports than most of the big-time athletic programs, I do not foresee much, if any, change. Just to give you one comparison, my alma mater Princeton supports 34 intercollegiate teams (18 for men and 16 for women, counting rowing as just one sport). UT-Austin, the richest athletic department in the country, supports only 18 sports (8 for men and 10 for women, if we count track & field and cross country separately and if we discount “Texas Relays”)

So perhaps a silver lining exists for some schools in the dark cloud of change that Block foresees on the horizon.

Best regards,
Sandy Thatcher, Frisco, TX

SNEAK PEEK AT THE MARCH SWIMMING WORLD COVER

Swimming World

Photo Courtesy: Swimming World Magazine

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