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Good news, bad news.

Most incoming freshman are not taking athletic assistance. The bad news is we lack sufficient scholarships in any case to attract multiple, high performers. Combined with our high tuition as a private university typically means preferred walks-on have to pay their own way. Swimming teams required depth in numbers and skills for all disciplines, e.g. strokes, sprinters, distance, etc.

Why would we lack sufficient scholarships?
We should have 9.9, like any other school in the Men's programs. Likely about 1.0 going to diving, so roughly 9 left for swimming. We definitely would need to leverage the athletic money with some really smart and really fast swimmers, so instead of giving them 100% athletic money, they are on 60-70-80% athletic money and the rest academic money.
If we have great coaching, and some very good swimmers in an elite environment, we will be able to get some guys with potential for not a lot of athletic money.

Scholarships are renewable every year - correct? It’s tough, but In these situations it seems like sometimes some folks have to move along or drop their sport and just become students so the team gets some schooly room.

Scholarships are renewable from year to year. BUT with most schools you can not just take away someone's scholarship without a very good reason. Most schools - including SMU, would typically have to have some sort of faculty committee/admin committee to OK removing someone from an athletic scholarship. Most would have to have a very good justification - the athlete skips practice, does not train hard, listen to coaches, etc. You can not just undue a poor coaching decision in recruiting/evaluations by cutting kids and moving on.
If you do things that way, high school and club coaches will not encourage their athletes to go to your school.