SMU in Dallas, Texas has broken ground on the new Hickman Outdoor Pool, an 8-lane, 50-meter pool located directly adjacent to the school’s relatively-new indoor 50-meter facility.
Details for the new facility were announced in 2021 with an $11 million price tag. That pool will include 1-meter and 3-meter springboards as well as a 20 foot x 40 foot instructional pool, locker rooms, and space for dryland training.
This will put SMU in the ranks of the few programs in the country that have access to two 50-meter pools on campus, especially in the same complex, along with the likes of Tennessee, Texas, and Auburn.
That marks a significant glowup for the school, which until 2018 relied on the Perkins Natatorium – a shallow, 6-lane, 25-yard pool built into the school’s former basketball arena. While Perkins offered a unique environment and hosted a lot of legendary swims, it was clearly-outdated. In 1971, the school added an 8-lane 50-meter outdoor pool, the Barr Aquatic Center, which by today’s standards seems Spartan in nature, if adequate for the long course training needed by the international stars of SMU’s heyday in the 1990s.
But now SMU will have two state-of-the-art 50 meter pools with the Hickman Outdoor Pool and the indoor Robson-Lindley Aquatic Center.
This is part of a wide-ranging list of upgrades to SMU Athletics (and academic) facilities as the school is the center of a lot of rumors for an invitation to one of the Power 5 Conferences in the new world of collegiate athletics. That includes a $100 million expansion of the End Zone Complex at Gerald J. Ford Stadium, the school’s football stadium, and a total $1.5 billion fundraising drive to enhance financial aid, expand athletics facilities, invest more in research, and build partnerships with corporations and non-profits to give students better access.
While uncertainty swirls about the future of SMU Athletics, both teams competed in the AAC last season, where the women finished 3rd out of 9 teams and the men won a championship dual meet with Cincinnati. There are rumors of a possible ASUN landing for SMU, temporarily, next season, but the conference says it is waiting for contracts to be finalized before announcing which teams will participate.
I used to work at SR Smith and designed a lane divider with 20% better wake damping than the current Olympic units. They are not in production yet but if you ask sales you might get the first order!
This looks like the perfect training site for Michael!!! Let’s go!!!!
Curzan just read this article.
My alumni donations being well-utilized I see.
This is one of the best days of my life and let this be the start of the greatest swim dynasty of all time!
ALL HAIL SMU
I heard a flock of swimmers are now scrambling to get their transfers in.
Wonder if they’ll let random Dallasites with no connection to the school like me use it for a fee or something. Would be great not to have to drive almost half an hour to swim outdoors
Join Pegasus Masters.
What has happened with the old pools mentioned in the article? Are they still around or have they been torn down and been replaced with other buildings?
The old pools are both gone now. They built an indoor practice facility for football on the site of the old pools.
Here comes the SMU comments🤣🤣