UNO swims against tide in launching new men's team
By Henry Cordes, Omaha World-Herald
On the surface, UNO would seem to be swimming against the tide in college athletics in announcing the launch of a new sport. The move comes at a time big financial shortfalls are prompting schools across the country to eliminate hundreds of sports programs — including at least seven NCAA Division I schools that have cut men’s swimming.
But UNO officials said the addition of the sport represents some new thinking in the way athletics can contribute to the campus.
Netting it all out, UNO believes that by creating the state’s only Division I program for men, it will gain a little revenue, give enrollment a boost and provide an opportunity for area swimmers to stay here and compete beyond high school.
And in the big picture, they say, the move could also contribute to Nebraska’s efforts to attract and retain the young people who represent tomorrow’s skilled workforce.
“We know there are a lot of students who are very capable in this area — and not only athletically capable, but academically capable — who are forced to leave the state,” said Dr. Jeffrey Gold, UNO’s chancellor. “That’s all part of the calculation in moving this program ahead.”
“These are kids that universities want. If a public university is dialed into the needs of the state, adding swimming makes a lot of sense.”
“These are kids that universities want,” said Greg Earhart, executive director of the College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America. “If a public university is dialed into the needs of the state, adding swimming makes a lot of sense.”
Seeking to stem such concerning tides, USA Swimming in 2015 provided a grant to the college swim coaches association to hire a new director of research and programs. And one of the new employee’s primary jobs would be to sell colleges on the benefits of adding swimming teams.
As it happened, the man hired for the new job was a 44-year-old Omaha native.
Greg Earhart had been a swimmer at Ralston High School. He went on to swim at a small college in Iowa and then went into college coaching.
From the day he started his new post as a swim program salesman, Earhart had in mind he wanted to one day get a Division I men’s team started in his hometown.
“I will just say I had a little more skin in the game in this proposal than in other places,” Earhart said recently.
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Neither Earhart nor Samland remember exactly the first time they talked about it. But at some point about five years ago, the two began informal discussions about starting a men’s team at UNO.
To Earhart, it seemed a natural fit: the only Division I program in the state, and in the city that hosts the Olympic Trials.
Of course, finances were the biggest hurdle. But a big part of Earhart’s job was providing individualized business plans showing schools why swimming could make sense financially.