Oregon State announced these days that the college could be cutting its swim team. The press launch says that the crew might be “discontinued through OSU at the end of the 2018-2019 season.” The school simply had a women’s team, and they completed ninth out of 9 groups at the 2019 Pac-12 Championships closing week. The Beavers did win what grew to become out to be their closing home meet closing the month.
The press release, quoting an assertion via Athletic Director Scott Barnes, cites a list of motives, inclusive of the value of building an on-campus pool, for slicing the crew. According to Barnes, OSU’s present centers “no longer meet NCAA standards.” The team hosts home meets at an off-campus city facility, and in line with Barnes, it’d cost $18-22 million to construct a brand new facility.
As is typical in these situations, the faculty has promised to honor present scholarships or help student-athletes transfer immediately should they desire to do so. The roster for this year included 21 pupil-athletes, including 10 inexperienced persons. Both heads instruct Jennifer Buffin and assistant Michael Wong, have been with this system on account that 2016.
While this system has had its successes, such as a handful of NCAA All-Americans, the Beavers have in no way finished better than seventh within the Pac-12 Conference, wherein the team started competing in the course of the 1986-1987 school 12 months, while the conference was still known as the Pac-10. A list of Pac-10 swimming championship outcomes indicates that Oregon State had a men’s team until the late 1970s.
While this means that there’ll now not be any Division I swimming programs in Oregon, it is nevertheless provided at 4 Division III colleges, including George Fox University, Lewis and Clark College, Linfield College, Pacific University, and Willamette University.
Here’s the full text of the e-mail from Barnes:
I am writing to announce that OSU will discontinue intercollegiate women’s swimming at the cease of the 2018-19 season. This choice is based upon the college’s dedication to offering all pupil-athletes a great, equitable, and competitive NCAA experience in step with the Athletics Department’s strategic plan. And to offer first-class and equal facilities for all teams while balancing monetary requirements for athletics facilities.
This selection is not made easily. It accompanied a complete overview of all sports activities and engaged Athletics Department management and the college’s Athletics Financial Sustainability Plan Work Group. This evaluation concluded that Oregon State could not meet its commitments even as it maintained swimming as an NCAA sport. My selection was also made with a thorough session with OSU President Ed Ray, who helped with this action.
Facility requirements contributed to this decision, as OSU campus pool facilities do not meet NCAA standards. As a result, the OSU girls’ swim crew holds home matches at the town-owned Osborn Aquatics Center, which is not similar to the aggressive swimming facilities at other Pac-12 Conference universities.
Our assessment decided that it’s far price-prohibitive to renovate existing campus swimming centers. A new collegiate swimming and diving facility could fee $18 to $22 million to build, no longer inclusive of the annual maintenance fee. Investing in aggressive swimming software facilities would negatively impact our potential to serve facility necessities for all sports activities and all OSU student-athletes.
As a former collegiate pupil-athlete myself, I am very mindful of our 21 scholar-athletes and two coaches tormented by this selection. I thank Head Coach Jennifer Buffin and Assistant Coach Michael Wong, in addition to our swimmers, for their many contributions to the OSU swimming program and Beaver Nation. We will thoroughly guide swim group individuals at some point during this transition, including assisting any scholar swimmers who may also seek to transfer to another university to compete. Meanwhile, those pupil-athletes will retain their athletic scholarships while they continue to make successful progress to commencement.
In the future, OSU will sponsor a complete of 17 intercollegiate sports activities and could sponsor about 550 opportunities for scholar-athletes to compete in intercollegiate athletics. Women’s sports activities include ten applications: gymnastics, volleyball, golfing, rowing, basketball, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field, softball, football, and cross country. S .. Men’s sports activities consist of soccer, basketball, baseball, football, golf, wrestling, and rowing.
Meanwhile, the university will continue to help complete scholar-athlete achievement in the lecture room, community, and athletic competition. We will obtain the dreams of the Athletics Department’s strategic plan by way of maintaining economic sustainability, triumphing in championships, and achieving postseason success and national recognition. We can preserve the proud subculture of OSU Athletics with the aid of competing and succeeding at the highest levels of intercollegiate sports activities.
