Save Kutztown Swimming - One Team - One Fight

On March 31, Kutztown University announced that it intended to discontinue the men’ s soccer and men’s swimming programs. According to the press release, the move is “expected to save the university up to $150,000 long term.” The university hired Alden & Associates, an executive search and consulting firm specializing in higher education, to conduct a funding study on the intercollegiate athletic program.
In addition to the male swimmers at KU, this decision has had a devastating affect on the Women’s Swim Team. Eliminating the men's team, in effect, has reduced the Kutztown University swim team by half. Swimming at Kutztown is not like soccer or basketball, where the teams have different coaches, practice at different times, and play different games. Men and women swimmers swim together, lift weights as a team, have coed meets, and hang out with each other. This decision not only affects the lives of the male swimmers, it also impacts the future of the girls who swim at Kutztown. If the intention of this decision is to promote proportionality in men’s and women’s sport, it has actually had the opposite affect. Most women swimmers choose Kutztown because it has a coed team. Think what effect this will have on prospective women recruits as well as current women swimmers.