‘Pack is hungry for swim team

Loyola has a pool and the student interest, but still no swim team.

Loyola has been without an active swim team for over 10 years even though the school already has up-to-par pool facilities and many students who are eager to get back in the pool and compete.

“I would join in a heartbeat,” said Lauren Smith, English writing freshman.

Other students agreed that having a swim team would be beneficial.

“I think it would be great to have a swim team here,” said Sophie Schaffer, political science senior.

Michael Giorlando, director of Athletics and Wellness, said there are certain reasons why the university does not have a swim team.

“We would love to have one,” he said. “If the opportunity was there with the proper budgetary resources, and swimming could be a competitive intercollegiate sport, it would absolutely be beneficial.”

The reason that Loyola still doesn’t have a team doesn’t have to do with these issues, but because Loyola is a member of the Southern States Athletic Conference in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, and swimming is not offered in the SSAC, Giorlando said.

“We have the facilities, but what matters is one’s conference and does that conference provide swimming as a conference championship sport,” Giorlando said.

In order to have a functioning intercollegiate team, there needs to be competition, and Loyola’s conference currently has no other teams to compete against, Giorlando said.

Without a swim team, Loyola students have taken their own initiative to continue swimming competitively. Physics freshman Riley Mayes, a 12-year competitive swimmer, has recently started a swim club at Loyola, which is waiting to be chartered by Student Government Association.

“I wanted to swim, compete and stuff, but not dedicate eight hours a day to it. I also wanted to give people who are interested in swimming an option to be more active on campus,” Mayes said.

A swim club is a good start because it will spread the word on campus about swimming, Schaffer said.

Giorlando said a club would help to start a swim team if Loyola joined a different conference.

“It would be a positive sign if that did get started, because then we would have a built-in feeder system right there if Loyola joined a conference that offered swimming,” Giorlando said.

Kristen Himmelberg can be reached at [email protected]