With apologies to our friends at TYR, without whom there would be no CollegeSwimming.com, it’s time to address the impact Performance-Enhancing-Suits will have on college swimming.  Without assistance from the manufacturers, or intervention from the NCAA, these suits have the potential to cripple our sport much like Title IX, overpaid priced football coaches, or mismanaged budget athletic departments have.

This isn’t a reaction to the onslaught of World, American, Pool, Meet, and Personal records, (though it should be noted that our records are still untainted).  That genie’s out of the bottle and there’s no going back.  Ever since Maris hit 61, we’ve learned that records and asterisks don’t mix, leaving us to celebrate the new and neglect the past. 

No, this new generation of suits, and the financial burden they impose, threatens to bankrupt teams, and hasten the elimination of entire conferences or Division’s.   I’m not talking the biggies, the Auburns, the Stanfords, or the Texas’s of the worlds.   Big budgets and sponsorships will enable them to squeeze swimmers into technical suits while the rest of college swimming tries to squeeze blood from a stone.

Let’s use Division II to set up the scenario, (though most any mid-major and several BCS-conference schools  face the same scenario).   Because Division II gets a larger share of its athletes to the big meet and because so many of their conferences have disappeared (the RMAC’s recent decision notwithstanding), there is an intense focus on the national meet.  Moreover, Division II is largely dominated by public universities, universities that have suffered the greatest casualties.  As these schools see their share of public funding slashed, it comes as no surprise that of the swim teams cut in the past five years, fewer than a quarter have been at private institutions.

Get it?  Shrinking budgets are the rock and the NCAA Championship is the hard place.  

Without the new generation of suits, any team – whether at or trying to qualify for NCAA’s – is at a competitive disadvantage.  Can you imagine a coach, in good conscience, explaining to his or her team that they’re going into their biggest meet of the year with inferior equipment?  To paraphrase Sean Connery, that’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Using the cheapest-available LZR, outfitting a 18-man and 18-woman conference team will cost in excess of $10,000 (though if the women want to wear more than the $290 jammer, bump the cost up to $13,000 minimum).   Ten large is not chump change, not even to the big boys, and most coaches would get laughed out the athletic director’s door after asking for that sum.

“Actually,” my athletic director told me, “this is far too serious to be laughing about.”

I ran the scenario by the AD at a Mid-Major school and his answer scared the hell out of me: “If that’s really what it takes to be competitive, I really have to think hard about whether it’s worth it.”  After all, he explained, his volleyball still wasn’t fully funded, football needed another assistant, and their highly-successful soccer coach was threatening to bolt to a rival school if she didn’t get a raise.

Now ask yourself, is a suit really worth making teams expendable? 

This isn’t about equity.  The big boys will still have their advantages.  No, this is about the health and vitality of our sport.  Eight years ago TYR made a commitment to collegiate swimming when it offered to support our site.  Other manufacturers have used dollars to promulgate their efforts within athletic departments or governing bodies.  I challenge them to – for the health of our sport – subsidize or supply every program with the best available suits.  Baring that, I implore on the NCAA and the championships committee to intervene.

Imagine college swimming without Division II or without Mid-Major schools giving kids opportunities to swim.   Picture a college swimming landscape with just sixteen schools committed to sponsoring swimming.

Actually, it’d look a lot like another costly sport . . . gymnastics.

- Greg Earhart