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Printer-Friendly ModeSVSU not looking into creating a swim team — yet
October 19, 2009 —
Built in May 1987, the Ryder Center contains an Olympic-sized swimming pool, fully equipped with diving boards and starting blocks. Despite this, there has never been a swim team at SVSU.
In 2006, there was a failed attempt at starting a club team, which is the closest thing to a swim team SVSU has ever had.
Dr. George Eastland, faculty athletics representative, mentioned at his “Athletics at SVSU: Past, Present, and Future” Rush lecture Oct. 15 that swimming is the sport he is asked about more than any other nonvarsity sport at SVSU.
According to Athletic Director Mike Watson, a survey is periodically taken of the student body to explore interest in new programs. When starting up a sports team, many factors must be considered, such as regional interest, budget, travel expenses and start-up costs. To the best of his knowledge, the desire for a swim team has not been reflected in the surveys.
SVSU alumnus Brandt Snook said, “This [the lack of a swim team] is something I’ve always wondered and people in the community wonder about all the time. We’ve got these two great pools in the community [SVSU and Delta] that are used only for open swim and teaching toddlers how to swim. They should use the Delta pool for that and use the SVSU pool for serious swimming.”
Snook believes that SVSU should get involved in activities such as hosting a championship meet at least once a year.
“It’s an Olympic pool: the whole place is built for competitive meets,” Snook said. “It’s a real waste.”
Marie Molinik, who graduated last spring and was the driving force behind the swim team attempt, says it was a lack of dedication by the students that caused the team to fail.
Molinik was very involved at SVSU and worked as a lifeguard at the Ryder for years. In 2006 she realized that the Saginaw area was ideal for swimming because most swimmers who don’t get swim scholarships to larger universities ended up at SVSU.
A passionate swimmer, she called up schools in the area to find out how she could start a co-ed team. She put up posters, made a facebook group and set up tables around campus. Soon enough, 30 people signed up.
The practices were in the morning and, at first, went so well that Molinik thought they could be an official club team. The first meet was supposed to be against Ohio State University.
After the meet fell through due to scheduling conflicts, people started to lose interest, especially because of the expenses involved and the early morning practices.
“It was tough to drive half an hour in the morning to open the pool at 6:30 and have no one show up, even if they lived on campus,” Molinik said.
Another student survey will be taken during the summer. For now, there is no reason to believe a swimming team will call SVSU home anytime soon.