Dead in the water

UW athletic director Scott Woodward gathered members of the UW men's and women's swimming teams in an athletic department office Friday morning. Nobody knew why. And in three minutes, Woodward delivered the news that still has many members of the UW's swimming teams shaking their heads. The men's and women's swimming programs are being discontinued at the UW, and the people most impacted by it still can't believe the news. "I thought it was a little unprofessional," senior Shandra Case said about how the news was delivered. "In my mind, I think [Woodward] is a little cowardly. I feel like he just delivered it and then ran and didn't stay to see the effect it had on the athletes." Men's team captain, Jon Banker, said Woodward's words rang hollow and lacked passion. "[He] came in and said, 'We've got some bad news for you,'" Banker said. "He went through the motions of what he had to do to communicate that the program's over. He had very little emotion committed to the delivery. It was really just the things people would expect him to say. 'I regret to inform you.' Those kinds of phrases. It didn't feel like he regretted informing us of anything." Woodward told The Daily yesterday that isn't true. "To [ask], 'Is there anything I regret [about the meeting]?' No, I don't," Woodward said. "But I do feel badly that they feel like I did this with dispassion. I did it with great remorse and great regret." There was no further explanation as to why the decision was made, Case said, other than Woodward saying that it was simply due to budget cuts and a lack of revenue last season from the football program. All questions, Woodward told them, were to be directed to their coaches. "Girls started crying," said Erez Fern, a junior who moved to Washington from Israel to swim on the UW team. "Everybody was really shocked and saddened. Didn't know what to say ... Everyone was basically devastated. Swimming is a sport that's a little more demanding than others. It takes over your life. It's who you are. People came to college for four years of swimming, dreaming of it for their whole lives." Woodward said he thought it best to simply deliver the message and let the coaches be the ones to console the athletes. This was not a decision made without emotion, he said. "This week was weighing heavily on me," Woodward said. "A lot of stress, a lot of high blood pressure. And we thought that was the best way to go about it. It was by no means any way to be disrespectful or to show any semblance of dispassion." None of the athletes saw it coming. "I was just really surprised and definitely blindsided because we'd had a really great season this year," said Liz Johnson, a senior who will graduate in the spring. "Everything [head coach] Whitney [Hite] brought to UW has not only impacted just the swim team, but all the other sports too. So I just couldn't believe they would choose the swim team to cut." However, Banker said that UW coaches and officials had been working with Woodward before the announcement was made, trying to come up with cost-cutting alternatives that didn't require any program cuts. The elimination of the swimming programs is expected to account for about $1.2 million of the $2.8 million the athletic department hopes to shave from its budget. Woodward confirmed that he had been in discussions with Hite and other administrators regarding the issue. "They've worked very hard to save our program, and Scott Woodward just said no and put his foot down on the issue," Banker said. Woodward said the decision was a last resort. "I don't want to equate this to death, but these are like Sophie's choices," Woodward said. "This is not something that I take lightly. We had a tough situation where we had a swim team that can't be fully competitive because we don't have a diving team. It was one of these decisions that you hate making but you have to for the good of the athletic department." The UW's lack of adequate swimming facilities was also discussed in the school's official release announcing the cuts. But Banker tells anyone using that argument to look at the team's performance at the NCAAs. The men's team placed 16th, their highest NCAA finish in 30 years. The women's team placed 15th, the second-best national finish in the program's history. Both teams, as standard procedure, forfeited points associated with diving. "Do we need a new facility ultimately? Yes," Banker said. "But is it something that warrants us cutting the program now? No. It's just madness to use that as an excuse." Of the 34 swimmers on scholarship - 19 men, 15 women - 23 have eligibility remaining. All existing scholarships will be honored, and the UW will allow other swim programs to contact anyone wishing to transfer. That's a route Russ Mahan, a sophomore whose decision to come to the UW was based "80 percent off of swimming," is considering. "I'm not exactly sure if I'm going to do that or not," Mahan said. "Not sure where. It just happened [Friday], so I'm kind of taking in what happens." While the UW athletic department is self-reliant, the university is facing serious cuts across the board. That, coupled with a decreased return on the university's endowment investments, led to his decision, Woodward said. "Since we are a self-sustaining operation with no funding assistance from the university or the state, [we] must find ways to reduce expenses and increase revenues in these difficult times," Woodward said in the statement. Five men's swimming teams and eight women's teams remain in the Pac-10. Other Pac-10 schools could soon feel the ramifications of the cuts, too, since the conference requires a minimum of six teams to take part in a sport in order for it to be sanctioned. "We don't know what this means yet," said Tammy Newman, a Pac-10 men's swimming and diving championships administrator. Newman said the committee that deals with swimming will meet next week to discuss, among other things, what to do in light of the shortage. Friday's announcement marks the second time this decade that the UW has discontinued its swimming program, which began in 1932. The first discontinuation of the program came in 2000 under former athletic director Barbara Hedges. She later reversed her decision after public outcry. Woodward said it's highly unlikely that swimming will return this time around--. This leaves 34 student-athletes without a team. "It's kind of hard to quit swimming," Fern said. "You usually decide something like that alone, not when forced to do it by someone else." Reach sports editor Christian Caple and reporter Maks Goldenshteyn at sports@dailyuw.com.

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