Clemson University has announced that it will be closing it’s only campus pool, McHugh Natatorium, after July 31st of this year with no current plans to re-open. The university has cited cost as the reasoning for the closure. According to a press release from Clemson, they will be conducting feasibility tests to determine the maintenance needs and costs. The Vice President of Student Affairs, Almeda Jacks, said the university is estimating the repair costs to be roughly $3 million before the feasibility tests are conducted. Jacks also said it’s estimated a new natatorium would cost around $12 million.
McHugh Natatorium consists of an 8-lane, 25 yard pool, and a diving well. Typically, a school of Clemson’s size has a at least one 50 meter (olympic size) pool and a diving well, especially if the school has or had an NCAA swim team. It’s also incredibly rare for any university to not have a pool at all (as Clemson will After McHugh closes), at least for student recreation and fitness, if not for athletic teams.
At a board meeting on Thursday in which the move was discussed, Clemson’s VP of Strategic Communication said that these talks about the future of McHugh Natatorium have been ongoing for years. Clemson Aquatic Team, the local USA Swimming club team, was told back in December that they would have to find a new facility to conduct their practices.
The move comes almost a decade after Clemson cut its men’s and women’s swimming teams after the 2010-2011, and cut the women’s diving program in 2017, eliminating the last of its NCAA sponsored aquatics programs. When the swim teams were cut, Clemson had also cited costs for repairs and operational costs as the primary reason. With the pool itself now on the chopping block, a vast number of programs, including club swimming, club water polo, club triathlon, and many other university functions will be without a facility. Outside the university, community programs such as Tiger Sharks swim lessons and a local diving club will be without a pool as well.
The move also comes not long after Clemson spent $55 million on a new football facility in 2017. The facility has been ranked in the top 2 college football facilities for the past two years. That facility does include a pool, pictured below. The money for that facility came from Clemson’s athletics department and IPTAY: the school’s booster club organization.
Courtesy: HOK
We have reached out to Clemson’s administration for a comment on the decision to close the pool, but they have not responded.
The vice president of the Clemson University Swim Club, Scott Eibel, reached out to SwimSwam to raise awareness there are efforts being conducted to try stop the permanent closure of McHugh Natatorium. You can read Scott’s statement below:
SwimSwam welcomes reader submissions about all topics aquatic, and if it’s well-written and well-thought, we might just post it under our “Shouts from the Stands” series. We don’t necessarily endorse the content of the Shouts from the Stands posts, and the opinions remain those of their authors. If you have thoughts to share, please send [email protected].
This “Shouts from the Stands” submission comes from Scott Eibel, vice president of the Clemson University Swim Club.
Clemson University has unfortunately made the decision to close the pool indefinitely on 7/31/2019 for a safety/feasibility study. The University says that the decision of having a pool on campus will be based on the outcome of the feasibility study. Currently, there are no future or current plans to have a pool for students to use whatsoever.
Our main goal regarding the future of a pool in Clemson is to get the support of all current students and alumni. We need to stress that the reason for keeping a pool on campus is for all Clemson students and faculty to use it for fitness along with the numerous clubs and activities who use the pool. Here’s a list of groups who use the Fike Recreation Center pool:
Club Swimming
Club Water Polo
Club Triathlon
Scuba classes
Kayaking classes
Intramurals
Clemson Aquatics Team
Clemson LIFE
CPR and Lifeguard certification courses
Aquatic Fitness classes
Local diving club
ROTC training
Physical therapy
Tiger Shark Swim lessons
The hundreds of students and faculty who use the pool for general fitness.
When Clemson closes its pool on July 31st, that would make Clemson the only ACC and major school in the country to not have a pool for student’s use.
What we (Clemson University students, alumni, and staff) want out of our administration: Clemson University should wait to close the Fike Recreation pool until there are plans in place to fix or build a new
and improved pool for students to use. Any current fixes should be made to the pool in order to keep it functional until there are plans to build a new pool.
If you would like to contact the school about this terrible situation, please call or email Dr. George Smith at (864)-656-2161 and [email protected] and/or email David Frock at [email protected]. If
you have any other connections in Clemson’s administration, feel free to try to get them to support the Clemson student population!
So it looks like the pool’s not closing indefinitely after all? https://www.tigernet.com/update/Clemson-announces-plans-to-reopen-Fikes-pool-after-repairs-33140
https://staging.swimswam.com/clemson-to-reopen-mchugh-pool-after-short-closure-for-repairs-this-summer/
My daughter is an incoming freshman from NY and a competitive swimmer that was going to go to another school to swim D-3 but loved Clemson so much and the Business Program that she chose Clemson. She was planning on swimming club as swimming is a part of her daily life. This comes as such a shock and complete disappointment. How can such a huge ACC school not have a pool. Terrible. What can we do??
Send an email to President Clements. [email protected]
“All in”, I guess that only means football! 55 million for a facility that serves less than 1percent of the student population and not 12 million for a facility that would serve many more and improve campus life for those not on the football team makes no sense and shows no concern for the general student population. There will be a lot of future IPTAY people and students deciding which school to attend who will remember this decision. Shame on Clemson for both its concern for students and lack of future business sense.
Disgusting. As a parent of two current Clemson students that have little to no interest in football but grew up swimmers, I can’t think of a direction more opposite to our interests and values.
Swimming is a life sport that is immeasurably valuable for health, fitness and safety. For a University not to have a swimming facility is inexcusable, for the University experience, campus life and local community.
South Carolina has already eliminated the pool at the College of Charleston and now they are considering Clemson, that has an enormously successful athletic funding program.
As a tax payer and tuition payer, I’m disgusted.
As a collegiate club swimmer, this is so sad. We’ve loved going to Clemson for meets, and their club team always does good at nationals and are great competitors. It’s heartbreaking to see this happen to them.
So the football team has slides installed in their huge $55 million daycare facility — daycare for the football players, not daycare for small children of faculty, staff, or students. But Clemson can’t put up $3 million for students and the community.
Sad. How much revenue did they bring in from their football team? Guess that is the priority.
All universities – especially the size of Clemson – should have a pool! In fact, in the SC climate, Clemson should have both indoor AND outdoor pools. They should build an outdoor pool before closing the indoor; and then build a nice indoor pool with amenities!
This is unacceptable. My son was planning to apply and he may not now….he gave up competitive swimming as a sport before HS, but had hoped to swim for fitness and play water polo in college. Looks like that won’t be available. VERY SAD as Clemson was his #1 choice!
Lastly, it’s wrong and unethical that some of the $$$$ from football cannot support other sports and fitness.
Look at the gorgeous recreation pool USC has…
USC actually has TWO pools at their student recreation center- one indoor and one outdoor. Both beautifully maintained