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I went to the NCAA website and it appears that we have two athletes in this year's summer Olympics. A swimmer from Columbia and Bryson (who then was out due to COVID). This is down from previous years. I would have thought that with Equestrian, tennis, track, swimming, sailing, volleyball, soccer and the like, we'd have had a few more. Hopefully that number ticks back up in the future.

Eaststang, Good question.

For example, our legacy of Olympic swimmers, Men and Women, is rich and deep, including medalists from the '70s through the 90's. However, we lost that history beginning the 2000's. The reasons are well known, including our facilities and inability to recruit.

Our new Aquatic Center will help, but with the cost of attending SMU and limited aid, SMU's path back in Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving will be a long one.

Soccer has promise as a team sport and we have produced some professionals. Golf and tennis are not that meaningful as Olympic Sports; more individual and professional in nature. Equestrian is a small Olympic sized team and difficult to sustain out of college unless you have $$$. Women's Track & Field could be one additional avenue and we did produced Male Track & Field stars in Shotput, but we have limited resources for the Women's team and the Men's Team was eliminated.

In summary, getting P5 revenue is needed to flourish in non-revenue sports, e.g. more scholarships and competition against stronger schools and teams.

I noticed that Tulsa, UCF, USF had more athletes than we did. They are conference mates.

EastStang wrote:I noticed that Tulsa, UCF, USF had more athletes than we did. They are conference mates.

What sports were they competing in?

Not sure. Just saw them.

Hi Water Pony. I agree with many of your points, but certainly with swimming - "limited aid" is not the issue. At least limited athletic aid. Unless something has changed very recently SMU has the NCAA maximum's of 9.9 scholarships for men and 14 for women in swimming. SMU is definitely hurt by "limited aid" for academic scholarships, which allows the coaches to pair athletic and academic money with some swimmers and stretch their athletic money to great advantage. USC, Georgia, and Florida are very good at that. SMU's focus for so long has been to build buildings, rather than building up endowed academic scholarships. There certainly has been some of that, but not nearly enough.
Purely from a swimming standpoint, SMU is irrelevant on a national basis, and certainly on an international basis. The Men show signs of coming back towards relevance. The women show no signs - in my opinion. Hopefully that will change in the near future. My only hope is on the men's side, unless there are very significant changes made in the women's program.

PonySwim, I share your optimism that the Men's team will improve. Greg has them working hard and his recruits are likely to exceed their own expectations in his demanding program. Hopefully, this progress will improve our depth, as well as individual PRs and our relays, which reveal more about the quality of the team.

EastStang wrote:Not sure. Just saw them.

Here are the current or former AAC athletes, who made various national Olympic Teams, including two from SMU.

School Athlete Sport Nation
Cincinnati Annette Echikunwoke Women’s Track and Field Nigeria
Vanessa Gilles Women’s Soccer Canada
Jordan Thompson Women’s Volleyball United States
Houston Brianne Bethel Women’s Track and Field Bahamas
Micaela Bouter Women's Diving South Africa
Mario Burke Men’s Track and Field Barbados
Tristan Evelyn Women’s Track and Field Barbados
Shaun Maswanganyi Men’s Track and Field South Africa
Memphis Precious Achiuwa Men’s Basketball Nigeria
Ellen Roberts Softball Australia
Joe Salisbury Men’s Tennis Great Britain
South Florida Olivia Chance Women’s Soccer New Zealand
Christiane Endler Women’s Soccer Chile
Demi Stokes Women’s Soccer Great Britain
Evelyne Viens Women’s Soccer Canada
Ken Eriksen
(Head Coach) Softball
(Head Coach) United States
SMU Isabella Arcila Women’s Swimming Colombia
Bryson DeChambeau Men’s Golf United States
Tulane Dominik Koepfer Men’s Tennis Germany
Danielle Titus Women’s Swimming Barbados
Leah Stancil
(Head Coach) Women’s Swimming
(Head Coach) Barbados
Tulsa Jennifer Casson Women’s Rowing Canada
Ben Preisner Men’s Track and Field Canada
Marc Scott Men’s Track and Field Great Britain
Wichita State Sabrina Lozada-Cabbage Women’s Basketball Puerto Rico