Week 4 Preview, October 20-22
Emory's first D3 opponent has a story worth telling.
Before the Denison Invite, Emory will swim against no fewer than 14 opponents. Only two of those opponents are Division III teams.
We can clown Emory for showing-off against all these Division I and Division II teams. But look around. Who else are they supposed to swim?
The southeastern section of the United States is not rich in D3 programs. For example, Georgia has a similar population as Ohio.
Population of Georgia: 10.8 million
Population of Ohio: 11.8 million
But I count three Division III swim programs in the state, including Emory. The other two aren't really contenders against Emory.1
By contrast, in Ohio there are 16 Division III swim programs. This includes Kenyon and Denison, roughly a 40 minutes drive apart.2 Case Western ranks within the top 25 in both Men’s and Women’s polls, while John Carroll’s Men’s team had extraordinary upside over the past couple years.3
Additionally, if you travel 150 miles east from either Gambier or Granville and cross into Pennsylvania, you'll find Carnegie Mellon. They're now among the top 10 in Division III.
Suffice to say, this creates a Division III competitive landscape that's vastly different from what Emory faces.
That said, Emory is set to compete against a genuine Division III opponent this weekend!
Birmingham-Southern endures, and why we might care
If you head 150 miles West of Atlanta you reach Birmingham, Alabama, where the Eagles will face-off against the Birmingham-Southern Panthers.
Birmingham-Southern College (BSC) is an anomaly for Alabama. It has the only Division III swim program in the state, and is the kind of small-scale, academically rigorous liberal arts college more typically found in New England or the Mid-Atlantic. Without BSC, there would be no place to get a (basically) secular liberal arts education in the state of Alabama.4
Liberal arts colleges have a special place in D3. Despite the presence of some important research institutions, D3 is commonly linked with liberal arts education, and - except for the D1 Naval, Army, and Air Force academies - the best liberal arts colleges in the country are D3.5 We need other kinds of education too, but many of us believe that liberal arts education provides irreplaceable social, cultural, and economic benefits to the entire nation.
Which is relevant because BSC almost folded.
BSC is only just beginning to recover from severe financial problems that originated from well-intentioned yet devastatingly harmful accounting errors spanning decades.
This miscalculation centered around Pell Grants, which are federal subsidies given to students based on financial need. The college failed to accurately determine eligibility for a lot (a lot) of students. As a result, BSC gave out an extra $5 million a year in unrecoverable grants.
Did we mention that this went on for more than a decade? By the time the mistakes were discovered and corrected, BSC lost tens of millions of dollars in revenue. And all that Pell money had to be paid back to the federal government. Settling those obligations cost BSC more than $40 million from its modest endowment.6
BSC’s initial recovery plan relied heavily on increasing enrollment. The school was covering costs through tuition payments, which is like living from paycheck to paycheck. Nevertheless, the college survived. Despite operating on slim financial margins, they enrolled over 1,300 students in 2016.
Then came COVID-19. BSC had limited reserves to fall back on. A 25% decline in enrollment triggered a downward resource spiral.
Earlier this year, they were literally about to close. Not the usual ‘hey, we might need to cut Men’s Tennis.’ No, I mean closing all the doors and turning off the lights. In fact, the idea of leaving all the buildings deserted and having the campus go dark in the state's largest city influenced the state legislature's decision to explore methods of supporting the college.
It's worth noting that the athletics department, which boasts a competitive swim program that regularly wins their conference championships (and sends divers to Nationals), isn't to blame. They've managed admirably for years, performing at a very high level. And things may be about to get a little easier.
This summer, the Alabama legislature rolled out a multi-million dollar loan initiative to assist Birmingham-Southern. This initiative aims to ensure the school's sustainability as it focuses on replenishing its endowment. The school’s goal is to create a financial cushion by 2026; the loan program expires in 2027.
Birmingham-Southern is a valuable institution in an unlikely place, and its effort to return to financial health - along with its overachieving swim team - are both worth rooting for.7
Is SwimSwam even trying?
This is SwimSwam’s college swimming preview for the coming week. Though they don’t acknowledge this, every meet mentioned has at least one Division I team in the water. Not listed: any meet that features only Division III teams. Which is strange because SwimSwam claims to cover ‘college swimming.’
It is also strange because this isn’t about speed or actual level of competition. Many of the D3 teams not listed are significantly faster than the D1 teams that are listed.
Because Mt. Saint Mary’s8 is a D1 team, their meet against Messiah is listed. Geneseo is swimming against Alfred St., but because both of those schools are Division III, that meet is not listed. Care to guess what SwimCloud’s meet simulator thinks would happen if Geneseo swam Mt. Saint Mary’s?9
I will stick with the numbers from 2022-23. Using current season numbers creates even more lopsided wins for Division III schools (and the sample size is smaller).
The University of Maine vs. the Maine Maritime Academy is listed because Maine is a D1 school. Carnegie Mellon vs. Washington & Lee is not listed because both are D3 schools. Care to guess what SwimCloud’s meet simulator thinks would happen if CMU swam Maine?10
Both of Fordham University’s meets are listed because Fordham is D1. Emory is swimming against Birmingham-Southern = two D3 schools = not listed.
The tri-meet feature Indiana State and the University of Illinois-Chicago is listed because those are Division 1 schools. The University of Chicago is hosting it’s own mini-invite, but they feature no Division I schools, so it is not listed. Care to guess what would happen if Chicago went and swam at the Indiana State/UIC meet instead?
And Cincinnati vs. Kenyon is not of interest for this comparison, because the fragment of the Kenyon team facing Cincinnati does not fully represent that team, let alone Division III.
Washington & Lee vs. Carnegie Mellon
As mentioned above, this could be pretty cool. These are both good teams. Up until now, CMU has just been screwing around with relays. We have not seen them test-drive this team yet. As alluded to earlier, this is a top 10 Men’s team and the Women are ranked 12th in D3. Plus, if Savannah Xu swims 200 Back or 200 IM, then that’s like Christmas coming early. We’ll be watching both teams with interest. While we are officially in the bag for W&L’s Brynn Martinson, Myla Rice also looks like a contender for the Generals. Pretty excited about this one.
Also in action
Also as mentioned, SUNY Geneseo will host Alfred State. Meanwhile, roughly 40 miles away, Alfred University (distinct from Alfred State) will be hosting the RIT Tigers. Should be a rough day for the Alfreds, with maybe an Alfred State win in Men’s 100 Fly (Ricardo Villarreal), and an Alfred University win in Women’s 100 Fly (Kamila Roman) and 200 IM (Ivy Valley). Maybe. Otherwise, both Geneseo and RIT should roll.
And, as noted, Chicago is doing a mini-invitational, so that will be worth recapping in detail.
Enjoy the meets. Look for a recap sometime on Monday.
Emory is joined by Berry College and Piedmont University as Division III schools in Georgia with swim programs.
Unless you find yourself stuck behind a John Deere S790 Combine in which case, god help you.
Best of luck in South Bend, Liam McDonnell.
John Carroll’s Women are not pushovers and seem to be, by and large, wonderful people who you can’t help but root for and who are taking that team in the right direction. Big fans of Mairin Dalziel and Olivia Goodman. Big fans.
I just don’t think Oakwood University counts. By their own statement they offer a ‘biblically-based education for service to God and humanity.’ I know some liberal arts colleges have an explicitly religious mission, but I think ‘biblically-based education’ excludes Oakwood from the liberal arts category.
And Davidson fits in here too, and they are Division I. Basically, 21 of the 25 top liberal arts colleges in the United States have Division III swimming.
It is so unusual for an institution to lose this amount of money without either massive corruption or ungodly hubris (usually in the form of risky investments). But no. BSC just gave away too much money to students to help them afford college. It’s possibly the most charming way for a school to go bankrupt.
You know who went to Birmingham Southern? Miles Copeland III. Miles Copeland III started IRS Records and if you are unfamiliar with that label, then you owe it to yourself to start sorting through that catalog of absolute brilliance. I am sure I am missing important stuff, but may I suggest you start with Wall of Voodoo’s version of Ring of Fire? Then Lost Weekend by the same band. Then hop over to the Bad Music For Bad People LP, the iconic Cramps collection. Garbage Man is the classic, but as far as I am concerned the high point is Love Me leading right into I Can’t Hardly Stand It... I’ll stop now, but please, take time to smell the roses, and FFS listen to those songs. So great.
It is going to sound like I am picking on the Mount, but this is nothing personal - blame SwimSwam for setting you up like this.
If I used 23-24 numbers then Geneseo would win in an absolute landslide, by over 200 points in both Men’s and Women’s events.
Obviously there is a fair amount of cherry picking happening here. I am aware that I am pitting the strongest in Division III against the weaker D1 squads on SwimSwam’s list. That is kind of my point though. The division designation doesn’t tell you what you want to know about the strength of these teams.
And even some random pairings produce interesting results. For instance, the W&L Men are not ranked in the D3 top 25, but according to SwimCloud they would convincingly beat the Men’s squad at D1 Maine.
What is really frustrating about the lack of Division III coverage from SwimSwam is how it perpetuates this "JV" view of D3 to the (very impressionable) younger age group that reads their site. Talented swimmers and that are, very soon, going to be looking for schools to attend. Like it or not, all of those kids care about the "hype" and presence of a school when recruiting. Seeing/hearing absolutely zero coverage of any Division III competitions from these big publications is really harmful, and it's made even more ridiculous by the fact that top D3 programs would, as you pointed out, oftentimes blow out many D1 schools in a meet.
Many swimmers I've spoken to who have solid (e.g. not D1 NCAA, but competitive) times completely ignore D3 recruiting as they are so obsessed with the idea of "going D1", when, in fact, going D3 would give them a better education and more opportunities to compete at the highest level (Conferences, Nationals) instead of never making the travel team in their career. Swimswam, as the largest swimming publication, has a responsibility to fairly report the successes of all levels of college swimming.
This is adjacent to the "anti-D3" attitude that the head editors at SwimSwam have taken. Last year, when they took weeks to publish any coverage of NCAA invite times and got called out in the comments, Braden Keith (or one of the admins) proceeded to tweet something along the lines of "this is why we don't give attention to Division III). So ridiculous.
Just graduated from BSC as a swimmer, and reading this brought a smile to my face. We've all gone through a lot, and even though the Emory meet has always been one of those weekends we just have to laugh through and have fun, I know the Panthers appreciate and are grateful for the chance to see what D3 programs are capable of. If anyone reading this wants to show their support for BSC, please help us email State Treasurer Young J. Boozer III at young.boozer@treasury.alabama.gov and call him at (334) 242-7501 to help our students and alumni fight for the funding that was promised.