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PoconoPony wrote:

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.

gostangs wrote:Looks like we should have skipped the swimming building, saved 30 million, and established a men's and women's lacrosse team where we already had a field, and competed in a sport our students care about.

gostangs wrote:Looks like we should have skipped the swimming building, saved 30 million, and established a men's and women's lacrosse team where we already had a field, and competed in a sport our students care about.

gostangs wrote:Looks like we should have skipped the swimming building, saved 30 million, and established a men's and women's lacrosse team where we already had a field, and competed in a sport our students care about.

mathman wrote:

gostangs wrote:Looks like we should have skipped the swimming building, saved 30 million, and established a men's and women's lacrosse team where we already had a field, and competed in a sport our students care about.

Water Pony, just ignore this type of comment. I have followed SMU for over 50 years (graduated in 68) and have always been proud of the swimming and diving program we have had. It's a shame the school allowed the facilities to decline as much they have and was thankful to see the swimming and diving alumni put up the money to have a state of the art facility built. They have our sincere gratitude.

mrydel wrote:Really need cheerleading to be sanctioned as a sport.