I wish to address the pending termination of the Syracuse University Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Teams. As the Athletic Director at Southern Illinois University, my philosophy was to provide everything necessary to maintain a quality program in every sport. It was my job to find the people and the funds necessary to that end.
As the SIU Athletic Director, I supported the swimming and diving teams in direct and indirect ways such as:
Attend every swimming meet possible to welcome opponents and show visible support for OUR team.
Present team awards at invitational meets and the National Independent Championships.
Made a motivational speech to swimmers at their NCAA Championship send-off dinner.
Thank the swimmers for being great athletes and students at the team’s annual awards banquet.
Our swimming and diving teams were assets to our total athletic department because:
Swimmers and divers were excellent students with a 100% graduation rate for those that swam all four years at SIU.
Swimmers and divers had an excellent team GPA.
Swimmers and divers had solid majors and became successful professionals upon graduation.
Swimmers and divers were quality people of which the university-community are very proud.
Swimmers and divers did many things within the university-community that illustrated their positive contributions to young competitive swimmers in southern Illinois and to disabled university students.
Swimmers and divers were the ultimate student-athletes in every sense of the word.
Swimmers and divers followed a Herculean training regimen without question because of their orientation toward goal-directed athletics.
Our community enjoyed supporting swimming and diving by:
Attending our dual, invitational, and championship meets conducted on campus.
Funding the purchase of equipment and training trip travel necessary to help them be the best they can be.
Attending awards banquet to recognize the swimmers and divers for their efforts.
Please continue to work hard at creating a positive image of your team just as we did at Southern Illinois University and your efforts will be appreciated by both the university and community.
Have a wonderful season in this Olympic year. We’ll be watching American swimmers and divers in Beijing this summer and just about all of them were or are NCAA student-athletes.
