The University of Bridgeport will be cutting both it’s mens and women’s swimming & diving programs after this season. The school informed the team and alumni about the decision this week.
Bridgeport competes in the NCAA’s Division II and the Metro Conference. Both men’s and women’s teams finished 4th in that conference this past season among 17 women’s programs and 14 men’s.
Team members started posting about the cut on social media yesterday, including the posts below:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BuuTaxUlIgA/
In addition, athletics director Anthony Viti e-mailed alumni today to inform them of the program cut.
“Following a comprehensive evaluation of all our programs, the University will be discontinuing our competitive swim program effective July 1, 2019,” Viti says in the e-mail obtained by SwimSwam. “As a former student-athlete, please know that this decision did not come easily as I experienced firsthand the heart and effort that our student-athletes and coaches put into their practice and competitions.”
He referenced low participation numbers on the women’s program and the absence of a dive program as contributing factors in the decision to cut the program.
We’ve reached out to the athletic department for comment, but have not yet received a response.
Maybe it’s best for the swimmers to find another school anyway:
https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/University-of-Bridgeport-to-drop-Naturopathic-13715902.php
Bunch a Yankees anyway…still we shouldn’t oughta be losing all these teams! It is bad for the bathing suit companies and towel makers!
The timing is never ideal, but in this case, why not wait two more weeks. We can talk all we want about the “uncontrollable” events that coaches ask to avoid when preparing for competition, but most swimmers would have trouble with this news. Hopefully they will somehow overcome this news and perform their best at NCAA’s. That being said….please stop listing how the team performed from an athletic perspective when we hear this news. Performing in any athletic arena has been and always will be….an expectation! Whether you perform at a higher level than other programs or not, doesn’t matter, if the bills can’t be paid. And yes they will keep those other sports. Is that fair? Probably not! But… Read more »
Well, their only listed men’s sports were basketball, baseball, cross country, soccer, and swimming.
It’s devastating. The athletic department held on to a coach that was damaging to the team and the university for way too long for the past few years and is now punishing the current team and coaches for their poor decision making and management. Everything went down hill when they let go our first coach back in 2014 and didn’t manage to get someone as successful and driven to push us further. Now they’re just cutting the program – this is not the last they’ll hear from us. The alumni board is strong (former swimmers and supporters of the team) and is making sure the athletic department won’t just get away with this.
Actually it is the swimmers who got the first coach fired. Swimmers that underperformed and never got used to the system. Everything that came after him was not even worth a mention. I didn’t care to look at the program since first coach parted ways with the UB… this doesn’t surprise me a little. Athletic director PERSONALLY promised swimmers rings for NCAA titles and they never got them. I bet some other teams at UB got theirs for some D2 “never heard of” conference champion rings..
http://chng.it/DGGHW4nw a petition is going on to save the team! Lets go people! This is still not final, these kids deserve more
Look y’all I know this is new to you, but internet petitions do basically nothing. For every 10000 internet petitions, there’s 1 that makes a difference. Every time a program is up for grabs, someone puts up an internet petition, it gets 5000 signatures…and the program still gets cut.
Focus on doing something useful. Like donating money. Internet petitions are useless.
Multiple NCAAs Champs, Silver Medalists, countless All Americans and 1 NCAA relay record back in 2013. I am proud and devastated UB Alumni at the same time…it is all downhill for D2 now…
Pretty sure this is not the beginning of the end for D2 swimming – I’ve seen more than a few announcements of new D2 teams the past half decade or so.
Wow a pretty successful team to be cut.
It will be interesting to see how many more D2 teams get the same treatment, especially if the rational is low participation numbers and the absence of a dive program.
I am sure this won’t get as much recognition as some of the bigger D1 schools that have been cut but it is still a very odd time to be a swimmer at a school that undervalues swimming or an alumni of a program like that.