Hey Cincinnati... No Hard Feelings. I'm Still Rooting For You.

I got a SwimSwam email alert the other day that should make any fan of college swimming happy:  The Cincinnati Bearcats will be "aggressively" working toward re-instating full scholarships to their swimming program!  The cherry on top?-- Their new football coach is a big supporter and is pitching in to help!

I was pumped when I read this, even though I like to pretend I hate Cinci. Why would I do that?  Read on...

It's not you, Bearcats... It's your parents.

Winslow Shows the Potential for Corruption Within the College System

Last week, Irvin Muchnick at concussioninc.net broke the news that sexual abuse charges would be brought against then Utah Head Swimming and Diving coach Greg Winslow. Since then, many more allegations have come out, among them that he punched an assistant coach in the face, was intoxicated at work and harassed swimmers on his team. Many of these things were an open secret in the Swimming world. I can remember hearing about the assistant coach covering up a black eye, but I was several degrees removed from the source. The whole things begs a basic question: how could you purposely injure someone working for you, or any of the incidents chronicled by Muchnick, and not suffer consequences before now? The answer is obvious if you work inside a college athletics department.

Saying Farewell to The Empire

As I write this, I still don't know if it's over. Such is the anxious instability of the end of a college season. This past weekend was my final ACC Championship (for now). I have a swimmer sitting at 24th entering today, which is just high enough to give hope and to subsequently crush it. Regardless, the men's meet was the last ride for the greater part of The Empire. What is The Empire, you ask? It's the half serious, half silly name that my swimmers gave to the training group I've run for the last three years. This weekend and last was a series of emotional gut punches, as I watched swimmers race and realized one by one that I wouldn't be there for their next.