EAST LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan State University (MSU) Board of Trustees appeared to finally sink the hopes of dozens of swimmers and divers when they said they could not establish a swim and dive program during a meeting on Friday.
Board member Melanie Foster cited the cost to build a new pool and fund the team as the biggest hurdles.
Michigan State has an annual athletics budget of nearly $100 million and members of the men’s and women’s programs said supporters have pledged up to $10 million to fund the team.
“We do not see a viable path to establish a swim and dive program,” Foster said. “While we know this is not the answer supporters are seeking, we feel we owe an honest, definitive statement on this issue.”
MSU swimmers and divers also spoke directly to the university’s new interim president, Teresa Woodruff, making another plea to reinstate their teams.
“The same university that I signed a contract with is screwing me over,” junior swimmer Stephen Freitag said. “I keep thinking if they wanted to they would. If they wanted to put us back in the water they would do anything in their power to do so.”
They took aim at MSU’s former president, Samuel Stanley, and former athletic director, Bill Beekman. Their emotional pleas were unlikely to change the minds of the university where they signed to swim.
“Let’s be clear about one thing,” senior swimmer Sheridan Phelan said. “Dr. Stanley and Mr. Beekman made a bad decision and it seems that that decision has left us to be treated like trash.”
The university cut the program entirely in the summer of 2020, after first cutting the women’s team drawing legal challenges under Title IX.
After two rulings in favor of the teams, one from a district court and another from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, MSU brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
This week Justices on the High Court declined to take the case giving the university an ultimatum to either get in line or not and today that decision was made.
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