{"id":372347,"date":"2019-06-05T07:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=372347"},"modified":"2019-06-05T08:19:25","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T15:19:25","slug":"the-swimming-crisis-in-west-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/the-swimming-crisis-in-west-virginia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Swimming Crisis in West Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Noll, Swimming World College Intern<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

West Virginia is best known for its country roads and beautiful scenery. When people think of swimming in West Virginia, they might not even imagine a pool so much as a river. However, the swimming community in West Virginia is growing rapidly. While it’s great that swimming is gaining more momentum, there is one big obstacle for young athletes in this state: a lack of pools to swim in.<\/p>\n

Charleston, WV<\/h3>\n

Greg Olson<\/strong> was the head coach of the University of Charleston Swimming team from 1973 until the program ended in 2002. When the program was cut, Olson incorporated the college swimmers into the Huntington YMCA Charleston Aquatic Team, a program he had been building since 1976.<\/p>\n

Over his decades of work, Olson has seen over twelve area pools close and attributes this to the high maintenance costs. The available pools are also old and outdated.<\/p>\n

\"university-of-charleston-pool-two\"

Photo Courtesy: Facebook, @hycat.org<\/p><\/div>\n

Interest in swimming has increased, but pool space has decreased. During his time as aquatics director at University of Charleston, Olson rented out the pool to other club teams, high schools, or YMCA teams to use for practice. Seven other teams along with his own club team practiced in the pool. Scheduling was difficult, as each team needed room to practice but did not have enough time or space to do so.<\/p>\n

When the University of Charleston swim team was cut due to \u201cthe program not being one of the top 25 in the country\u201d by the president at the time, Olson kept the team going by making it into an intramural team. Olson’s team got priority in scheduling, and the other teams – three of which traveled from upwards of an hour away – would get three lanes, another would get the other three lanes, and they would have the pool from 4 in the afternoon until 10 at night.<\/p>\n

High School Swimming<\/h3>\n
\"alayan-thompson-diving\"

Photo Courtesy: Facebook, @hycat.org<\/p><\/div>\n

This story is not unfamiliar. There are no high schools in southern West Virginia that have a pool in the building. All high school swim teams in that area have to travel off campus in order to practice. Only two high schools in the panhandle area have pools. In surrounding states, most teams do not have to travel so far.<\/p>\n

Kaycee Wheeler<\/strong>, head coach of George Washington High School\u2019s swim team, has to take her team to the local Young Mans Christian Association for practice. In order to get to practice, swimmers must travel across town six miles. The school does not provide transportation, so the teenagers must carpool in order to get to practice. George Washington High School is widely regarded as one of the biggest and best high schools in the state. The team has a roster of 50-plus swimmers. Wheeler describes the team’s current practice situation:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at the liberty of another facility and thus bound to their schedule and plans. We can not easily host meets, because again we are at the will of the facilities we have access to and they are not always open or flexible.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the team faces hardships in scheduling pool time, she says attendance barely affected. \u201cMy attendance is still really good, even though we have to practice off site and so late.\u201d The high school does not get to start practice when they want. They swim \u201canywhere from seven p.m. to as late as starting at nine p.m. in past years.\u201d Due to the late start time, Wheeler tries to keep practices short so her high school athletes can still have time for scholarly pursuits. Wheeler dreams of one day having their own facility so that the team could continue to build their winning tradition.<\/p>\n

A Possible Solution<\/h3>\n
\"greensboro-aquatic-center-construction\"

Photo Courtesy: Greensboro Aquatic Center<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2018, the University of Charleston decided to shut the pool down for good. The Huntington YMCA Charleston Aquatic Team and seven other teams needed to find a new pool in which to practice. There is an outdoor fifty-meter pool at the local state park. All it would need is a dome to cover and it could be used year-round.<\/p>\n

Olson doubts that this solution will actually work. West Virginia state laws prohibit pool domes from being up for longer than 180 days. According to Olson, there is no way to schedule a time for the dome to be up that would work for everyone. West Virginia experiences harsh winters that last well into April. The pool itself is also very old and maintenance costs are high.<\/p>\n

Despite Olson’s fears, the Kanawha Valley Young Mans Christian Association has raised the money to begin construction of a dome over the pool. Doming will begin in the fall of 2019.<\/p>\n

Olson proposed a plan for a 50-meter competition pool to be built in a mall in Charleston, WV. He outlined his plan in a recent open edition for the Charleston Gazette-Mail<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Although hopefully the doming will help the situation, more needs to be done. Wheeler believes that interest in swimming would only increase if more pool space was available. Because of the difficulties in scheduling practice times, young talent from the state of West Virginia is dying out.<\/p>\n

College Swimming<\/h3>\n
\"howard-wesleyan-swimming\"

Photo Courtesy: Facebook, @WVWCSwimming<\/p><\/div>\n

This is most apparent when looking at the rosters of college swim teams in West Virginia. As of the 2018-19 season, West Virginia University has only one in-state swimmer. Everyone other athlete on the team is from out of state or is an international student.<\/p>\n

April Gitzen<\/strong>, Head Coach of West Virginia Wesleyan Swimming, had this to say when asked if she recruited potential freshman from in state: \u201cYes, however there is a limit due to the lack of swimmers within the state. Some years there is a great number of quality athletes while other years, there is not as many\u2026overall we have better luck with other states and internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out of 27 colleges and universities in West Virginia, only seven have swimming teams, and only two have both swimming and diving. In the last four years, one of those programs – Wheeling Jesuit University – was cut due to lack of funding. The school itself will be shutting down in the next three years.<\/p>\n

The Bottom Line<\/h3>\n

What does this all mean? West Virginia needs more pool space. Although West Virginia University is building a brand new facility, it will mainly only help those in the northern part of the state. Those in the middle and southern areas will continue to have to fight for pool time.<\/p>\n

What do you think are possible solutions to the problem? Leave your comments below!<\/p>\n

-All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Noll, Swimming World College Intern.\u00a0 West Virginia is best known for its country roads and beautiful scenery. When people think of swimming in West Virginia, they might not<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7376,"featured_media":372586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,17,8,7],"tags":[87028,87026,87027,81370,2754],"class_list":["post-372347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college","category-commentary","category-high-school","category-usa","tag-april-gitzen","tag-greg-olson","tag-kaycee-wheeler","tag-sarah-noll","tag-west-virginia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nThe Swimming Crisis in West Virginia - Swimming World<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The swimming community in West Virginia is growing rapidly. 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