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What has happened to our teams? Seems not too long ago that being Conference Champs was a given. Not so for the last few years. This year is a record disappointment? Maybe new facilities help?

I cannot imagine a good swimming recruit coming to SMU with our old facilities. Not to say that they didn’t. The facilities were atrocious when I was there 50 years ago. Now we can once again recruit on a level swimming field and get back to where we were. But it might take a while.

We are probably about 1.5 classes from being competitive again.

DanFreibergerForHeisman wrote:We are probably about 1.5 classes from being competitive again.

I strained from posting that statement

mrydel wrote:

DanFreibergerForHeisman wrote:We are probably about 1.5 classes from being competitive again.

I strained from posting that statement

I can't say I am proud of it

Our kids were well prepared and competed very well. Biggest problem I saw was huge issues with team depth. Cincy, ECU and Houston had a very large number of competitors vs. SMU. In the past, our coaches had to put a numbers limit on the kids they could recruit and train based on the considerable limitations of lane space. There are just so many limitations for training with only 6 lanes available in the old facility. Now we can get upwards of 21 lanes ( based on pool configuration ) individual lanes for training. Things will turn around; however, we will always face the challenge of finding international caliber kids who can afford all or part of an SMU tuition and have the grades that could generate some additional schollie help. As a minor sport almost no swimmer is afforded a full ship and it is a real juggling act to get a kid into school, provide some athletic assistance and then find academic help making it possible to attend if they cannot financially afford SMU.

for us old timers, it's just hard to imagine how far this program has fallen...from the days of being a top 10 program nationally to struggling to compete in the AAC. As Pocono says, there are challenges that go well beyond a new facility, but at least it's a start and an indication that someone still cares

Interesting that SMU got so many Top Performer awards, so maybe it is the depth we are lacking and not the talent. Would be curious to see the point totals if you only gave points to the Top 5 in the finals.

AusTxPony wrote:Interesting that SMU got so many Top Performer awards, so maybe it is the depth we are lacking and not the talent. Would be curious to see the point totals if you only gave points to the Top 5 in the finals.

Take time to look at the meet results and you will clearly see the issues with depth. SMU would generally have 2 and 3 kids per event. Cincy would sometimes have as many as 7. When you are tallying 16 places for points it is apparent that numbers really count.

My real concern is that we simply do not have very many kids who have made the NCAA qualification times. We can make depth excuses about the conference championship; however, our top kids are still a big click down from the standards from the past.

PoconoPony wrote:Things will turn around; however, we will always face the challenge of finding international caliber kids who can afford all or part of an SMU tuition and have the grades that could generate some additional schollie help. As a minor sport almost no swimmer is afforded a full ship and it is a real juggling act to get a kid into school, provide some athletic assistance and then find academic help making it possible to attend if they cannot financially afford SMU.

I didn’t know this Pocono.

You’re telling me our school just dropped $30M on new facilities but won’t give 10-20 scholarships to kids so we can compete at the highest levels?

Most likely quality students, who, if history is any indicator, give back generously to our school.

Seems like a big contradiction. What am I missing?

SoCal_Pony wrote:

PoconoPony wrote:Things will turn around; however, we will always face the challenge of finding international caliber kids who can afford all or part of an SMU tuition and have the grades that could generate some additional schollie help. As a minor sport almost no swimmer is afforded a full ship and it is a real juggling act to get a kid into school, provide some athletic assistance and then find academic help making it possible to attend if they cannot financially afford SMU.

I didn’t know this Pocono.

You’re telling me our school just dropped $30M on new facilities but won’t give 10-20 scholarships to kids so we can compete at the highest levels?

Most likely quality students, who, if history is any indicator, give back generously to our school.

Seems like a big contradiction. What am I missing?

All sports have scholarship limits established by the NCAA. I believe swimming is set at 11 ( football 85, basketball 13). Based on NCAA guidelines and SMU costs a figure is established as to the value of an SMU scholarship. The coaches of all the "minor" sports are then given a pot of $$$$ equal to the value of their scholarships. It is then incumbent on each program to distribute the $$$ as they see fit based on a case-by-case basis for each athlete under consideration. Programs usually re-evaluate and readjust the assistance every year. Again, each coach has discretion as to their individual policy. The depth issue really affects the private colleges more as the costs are some times triple that of public schools. Hence, kids at the public schools would have far less costs to attend when only partial assistance is offered and when full scholarships are not available. With 1/2 scholarship at SMU a kid still needs $30,000 per year unless academic help also is available. At a public school a 1/2 scholarship would leave a kid with $12/15,000 to fund ( SMU $60,000 more over 4 years). ( You can also see this very much with the women's track program where we have almost no depth in contrast to Texas or TAMU. ) Several years back we had a great male breast stroker. who was an NCAA finalist, transfer his senior year from Arizona because he was attending with no athletic assistance and his parents had fallen on hard times and could not further attend AZ. The ideal athlete is a high standing student who can get academic assistance coupled with athletic assistance to cover most of the costs. The reality is that these top kids are also the targets of the top public schools as well as ND, Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Princeton which makes recruiting difficult. The good news is that our new facility will make top kids consider SMU.

PoconoPony wrote:All sports have scholarship limits established by the NCAA. I believe swimming is set at 11 ( football 85, basketball 13).

The NCAA DI scholarship limits for swimming are 14 for women and 9.9 for men.

And you are correct it is much more difficult for an expensive school like SMU to have the depth in their non-revenue sports as other less expensive schools.

Right now there is no sense of excellence in the swimming programs. Obviously facilities have been a problem for a long time.
But now you want very talented successful athletes who think they can be great if they come to SMU. You also want talented kids who have not had great training and are not that good in HS to think of SMU as a place where they can go to school, get a great education, and show great improvement at the college level.
We need to create that type of excitement about excellence for recruits - it is not there now.
One thing that really hurts SMU in swimming and other non-revenue sports is the lack of academic scholarships at SMU. At so many school around the country you can get 1350 SAT + top 10 % of your class and get 20%-50% of your college costs paid for PLUS whatever you can get in the way of swimming scholarship money. SMU is very lacking in this area. That really hurts all the partial scholarship sports.

So getting swimmers is the same as it always was? Just give all fulls to good people. What's different?

Not exactly. In the men you have 9.9 scholarships. If you give one to divers and have 9 left, you COULD give out 9 full scholarships, and possibly get 9 really good guys and get walkons for the rest of your team. One or two get hurt/sick/burned out, and you 7 or 8 guys.
So many guys these days will take 1/4 or a 1/2 and go to Texas/Georgia/Auburn etc rather than take a full at SMU or a similar schools. So, if you don't have a recent reputation for being really good, it is MUCH harder to get good guys - or women.
Since the early 80's (the last time we were really good in the men) - so many schools have built great facilities and have a really good amount of success. SMU hasn't been in the top 10 in a really long time. There is a credibility problem in the way of getting great athletes.