Ask us anything...

The impact of the House settlement on Division III swim/dive, and did we just witness the greatest senior class in the modern history of the men's national championship?

Are we really going to take the bait and speculate on the House v. NCAA settlement?

Yes.

From d3so regular Ed Maas: …I’d love to hear your predictions on how the House settlement will impact D3 swimming, which as you’ve already pointed out, keeps getting faster and faster!

For background, follow this footnote.¹

Immediate impact on DIII swim/dive?

Here are our unfounded and premature hot-takes:

• Division I men’s swimming will continue to shrink. We say continue because it has been shrinking for years, long before House vs. NCAA. As of last season, of the 200 Division I swim programs, only 137 (69%) have men’s teams. We expect House to worsen a not very encouraging situation.²

• A lot of very good swimmers and divers (both genders) will be looking for a new program. The House settlement introduced specific roster limits for collegiate swimming and diving programs, set to take effect next season.³

• Top Division III programs won't see major roster changes because—

  • First, they're extremely expensive. D3 schools don’t offer athletic scholarships, and merit aid for transfers is rare. To transfer into a school like Kenyon, families need to be comfortable writing a check for around $90,000 (likely to increase each year) or qualify for need-based aid (on this, these schools can be quite generous).⁴

  • Second, they’re very hard to get into. This season’s women’s national championship team, for example, came from a school with a 4% acceptance rate. Unless you are already extremely strong in academics, you are not getting into any of the schools you regularly see on the podium at nationals: University of Chicago, NYU, Pomona-Pitzer, CMS, Bates, Bowdoin, Williams, WashU, Emory, and others. Even Denison and Kenyon—often considered (shall we say) "less selective"—actually admit fewer than 25% of non-recruited applicants. It’s complicated.⁵

  • The future is already here. Some top-tier athletes were already taking a pass on the not-entirely pleasant D1 experience and opting for the dramatically better collegiate swimming experience to be found at top D3 schools. (Look at Cooper Costello’s recruitment rank—you tell us if D1 was an option.)

• Something hopeful? We will see more highly-ranked (mostly male) athletes choosing to swim at less expensive D3 schools with more forgiving acceptance rates—schools that nevertheless offer solid academic options, great campus life, and a swim/dive program with strong coaching and a shot at nationals. We expect state schools in Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland to really benefit.

OK, Ed. What do you think is going to happen?

Denison seniors and the men’s national championship

One reader asked: Is there any way to look at past years to see what was the highest scoring class in D3 swim history? Denison Senior men this year scored 160 and I'm curious how that would stack up against past years with Kenyon / Denison / Emory teams.

This is a sneaky-good question, especially because it narrows our focus to something manageable. The era when Kenyon, Denison, and Emory started taking turns winning men’s national championships began in 2011. Also, the 160 points mentioned are from individual events, so we will take that as license to ignore relays and the tricky problem of dividing relay points among team members.⁶ So:

Since 2011, has any senior class ever scored this many points in individual events at a men’s national championship?

Interestingly, the answer to this question, like a few others over the past couple of seasons, is clouded by unsettled questions about the role of graduate students swimming in Division III.

---

2024

In 2024, Emory seniors Nick Goudie, Jake Meyer, Ryan Soh, and Harrison Pire scored 115 points—a significant total still far from our 160 point benchmark.

2023

Wait, what is a senior? The Emory team at 2023 nationals featured a combination of seniors and graduate students. Counting only actual seniors—Lucas Bumgarner (diver), Colin Lafave, William O'Daffer, Patrick Pema, and Lawrence Redmond—their total points scored were an impressive 130.5.

However, there's the question of what to do with Justin Lum and Jason Hamilton.

Justin Lum swam for NYU during the 2018–19 and 2019–20 seasons. Then, during the largely non-existent 2020–21 season, he swam for USC in the (now actually non-existent) Pac-12 conference. There’s no SwimCloud record of him competing in 2021–22 [but we are told he did swim that season]. Then, swimming for Emory at 2023 nationals, he's listed in the Hy-Tek as a 5Y.

The case of Jason Hamilton might be easier. That nationals, 2023, was the end of the fifth year in which he recorded official college times. More to the point, he was listed as a senior at 2022 nationals—which, in our minds, means he was not a senior in 2023.

If we decide not to worry about it and just include graduate students, we run into another issue: it undermines the whole premise. We’d be comparing the accomplishments of one senior class to the accomplishments of two combined classes—seniors and grad students—which blurs the question we’re trying to answer.

And the question matters. Because after looking through previous nationals dating back through 2011, if we count seniors and grads, then Emory in 2023 wins.

If we restrict our study to actual seniors, the title goes to this year’s Big Red.

The rest of the history

Looking back through 2011, we do not see a senior class that surpasses the Big Red men of 2025. Here is a quick table for your reference.

OK, more later.

1. Background: Athletes sued the NCAA for blocking them from earning money from their name, image, and likeness. The result: the NCAA will pay over $2.7 billion to Division I athletes active from 2016–2024. Moving forward, schools can pay athletes directly—not just scholarships, but real cash. Because direct payment is now allowed, schools locked in fierce competition for the best talent will need to start paying their athletes in order to keep pace with rival programs.

Powerhouse schools with deep pockets and big TV deals will manage. But it is reasonable to expect many schools will re-evaluate how many teams they can realistically support—and how to stay compliant with Title IX.

Title IX? Title IX is a federal law that requires equal opportunity for men and women in college sports. So schools can’t just slash women’s teams to save money. Or, they can, but lawsuits are a likely outcome of doing so.

Athletes can (maybe) still file a Title IX complaint directly with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education, which investigates violations and can mandate corrective actions, including financial penalties to ensure compliance. However, the viability of this approach—relying on regulatory oversight rather than litigation—is increasingly uncertain. Given this uncertainty, costly litigation is probably the only viable path for athletes hoping to protect their rights.

2. We may see more situations similar to William & Mary, where both men’s and women’s swim programs were initially eliminated, but the women’s team was quickly reinstated due to Title IX compliance concerns.

Interestingly, the men’s swim team—alongside several other previously cut programs—was reinstated roughly six months later. Although the university described this reinstatement as indefinite, they made clear that the men's program was basically living paycheck to paycheck, dependent on 'sustained higher levels of philanthropic support going forward.’

In general, we expect athletic directors to prioritize avoiding the legal risks related to Title IX non-compliance when evaluating women’s swimming, while seeking relief from financial pressures when making decisions regarding men’s programs.

How do Division I and Division III compare?

Last year, only 137 out of 200 Division I swim programs (69%) sponsored men’s teams. Notably, every Division I program without a men's team was at a coeducational institution.

In contrast, Division III had 264 swim programs, approximately 90% of which sponsored both men's and women's teams. Among the 30 Division III programs lacking one gender’s team, nearly half (14) were single-gender institutions and thus inherently unable to sponsor both. Consequently, only 16 coeducational Division III schools—representing just 6%—chose to sponsor swimming but not to sponsor both men's and women's swim teams.

3. Under these new guidelines, both men's and women's teams are permitted a maximum roster size of 30 athletes each (possibly fewer in the SEC).

4. But many families considering these schools face the dreaded barbell—they find they can’t afford to write such an enormous check, but earn too much to qualify for significant aid.

5. Kenyon’s overall acceptance rate appears higher mainly because a large share of each incoming class is made up of recruited athletes who are essentially guaranteed admission. (These statements also apply to Denison, though the effect is less pronounced.) Nearly half of Kenyon’s incoming class is admitted through Early Decision, and most of those students are athletes. It's a tiny school with outsized athletic ambition.

6. Happily, we agree with our reader’s calculation: the Denison senior men—Patrick Daly, Elijah Venos, Tyler Distenfeld, Lucas Conrads, Gavin Jones, Christian McIntire, and Max Soja—scored a combined total of 160 points for their team in individual events.