CLEMSON, South Carolina, June 3. IN just a week, Clemson Swimming and Diving will be looking to the school's Board of Trustees to overturn an athletics department decision to phase-out the men's swimming and diving and women's swimming programs at the end of the 2011-12 academic year.
The Board of Trustees will meet on June 10, and a review of the decision could take place then. While athletics director Terry Don Phillips and president Jim Barker have both been on the record stating that they do not plan to review the decision, and that Clemson intends on moving forward.
The decision to phase-out the programs were completely based on Clemson not intending to build a 50-meter facility according to statements made by Phillips and reiterated upon further questioning by members of the Clemson community requesting a review of the decision. Some confusion regarding the pool length has even extended to members of the school's administration initially believing that Clemson's 25-yard pool was not "regulation length" according to information acquired by Swimming World.
While, initially, the Board of Trustees meeting likely looked to be a rubber stamp for the phase-out, information provided to Swimming World has indicated that the Board of Trustees might be interested in looking into the issue deeper. The decision to phase-out the program was made completely due to not having a 50-meter pool. It was not made due to Title IX issue (Title IX actually likely saved the women's diving program in the cuts). With this in mind, and the fact that the Clemson swimmers and signed recruits did not seem to have a problem with training and competing in a 25-yard pool, the Board of Trustees might be able to reverse the decision.
For more information on what you can do to help save the Clemson program, please visit the SaveClemsonSwimming web site at http://www.saveclemsonswimming.org.