The men’s swimming and diving coaches of the Pac 12 Conference just completed their conference call to discuss the problem of rescheduling the 2013 Pac 12 Men’s Championship meet. The meet was originally slotted to be held at the Belmont Pool in Long Beach, California, but for the second-straight year, the pool has been closed for inspection and repairs.
After the call, the coaches decided that their preference would be to hold the meet at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Washington, immediately after the women’s meet completes. The women will swim from February 27th-March 2nd, and the men will then go from March 3rd-6th (Sunday-Wednesday) immediately thereafter. That will be sort of strange timing for a conference meet, which are usually scheduled for weekends to minimize school absences and to make travel and attendance easier for friends and family, but the King County Aquatics Center was booked the following weekend for an age group meet.
That left the decision down to this solution, running a double meet with the women, or holding it outdoors, most likely at Arizona State. The coaches chose the mid-week timing as the easiest and least-stressful solution.
The final approval awaits confirmation by the Senior Women’s Administrators (SWA’s), but one coach we spoke with indicated that this is expected to be a rubber-stamp formality.
We have reached out to the other three conferences that were planning to hold meets at Belmont, the SCIAC, the PCSC, and the MPSF. No response has been received yet from the MPSF, and the other two conferences (which are predominantly made of Division II and Division III teams) are still planning their next moves.
The Pacific Northwest is a great place to swim!
It sure is!
not a great place if you’re a college swimmer… Where is the Husky team?!?!
Respectfully disagree. I’d assume you already know the answer to your own question. Support the Husky Swimming Foundation if you like. That unfortunate situation has nothing to do with KCAC being a great pool and venue for PAC 12’s and hopefully MPSF championships.
UW can’t afford a swim team. They can, however, afford a $260 million Husky Stadium renovation.
Just like life, it’s all about choices. This one sucks.
Fast pool or not, there won’t be that many people in the stands, particularly since the move was made (or will be confirmed) with such short notice. A great facility for sure, which will be 90% empty, due to the lack of support from any DI programs in the area, AND the lousy start/end dates. So much for wanting to promote the event!
MomoJamo – not quite true. Seattle University is a DI program. Certainly not one of the “big boys” in the BCS Conferences, though and with under 8k students, not a huge student body either. Nor a PAC 12 team.
I stand corrected, but not a Pac-12 team, and I seriously doubt their students will be attending, do you?
The PAC 12 meet generally brings in plenty of spectators and change fee or no, there will be a fair amount of people in the stands to support the conference and the swimmers.
It’s a great move– levels the playing field for PAC 12 men.
This really is about making it right for the swimmers. The parents that were going to be at Belmont will also go to federal way.
Really? I know a lot of them now that aren’t and I can’t bring any of my SoCal age groupers up to support the meet now either. Just like what’s happening at USA swimming will happen with mens’ swimming in the NCAA – just keep making things harder and harder to get to/achieve times for, and pretty soon you will have nobody watching.
Then they’ll all stand around scratching their heads wondering what happened.
You can’t bring any of your SoCal age groupers up to support the meet now? Why didn’t they think of that? If only there were age groupers in the Federal Way area…
It really only affects a handful of swimmer’s families who are locally from the So Cal area. Look at these program rosters and with the only real exception of UCSB (who tends to only recruit local CA swimmers) the swimmers are scattered from all over the country and world. Bay area/Northern CA families are already near equi-distant between Seattle and LA anyway.
There was a large contingent of Santa Barbara Swim Club (SBSC) age groupers at ELAC last season.. They will be missed for sure; however, some members of the Seattle teams will come out for this.
Let’s make EVERYTHING convenient for the SoCal swimmers and their families and coaches. Does anyone care that the SoCal age groupers can’t attend? The change will probably allow others the ability to attend who may not have otherwise. Most SoCal age groupers and their families have no desire to attend this meet. Most kids won’t go to a meet unless they are competing. When the coaches wanted our team to attend, they were lucky to get 5% and it was less than a 10 mile drive.
Attendance will probably be higher if the meet is taken out of SoCal – give others the opportunity to attend the meet!
Did you forget Cal Poly? They were there too last year if I recall. I know they are not official Pac-12, but they were there and I think would be considered “local”.
Of all the teams who compete in the Pac-12, all but 2 – Stanford and Cal are much closer to Southern California than they are to Washington state. Utah could be a toss-up, but AZ, USC, UCSB and Cal-Poly are all closer to SoCal. So, technically speaking, if one was to assume there were concessions made to accommodate the majority with proximity for this meet, then you would have to agree that a SoCal location would be more convenient and less burdensome for travel and such for the… Read more »
MOMOJAMO – You seem to hate this idea. I wonder what your solution would be given such short notice?
I agree with @jeantuehl – forget Belmont / East LA permanently until a complete renovation is done and just schedule this meet for Federal Way moving forward. This is sort of crazy 2 years in a row now with no end in site for the decline of Belmont. California is broke and apparently Long Beach isn’t committed to putting money in this pool. Be done with them!
It’ll be good to have this scheduled and done with. Honestly, though, I don’t think it makes too much of a difference where the meet is held. Fast swimmers will swim fast. Just give them some water that’s 25 yards in length and deeper than 7-8 feet.
Were you at ELAC last year? Lane 1 and 8 especially in the sprints was not good.
It’s to bad they have had to move two years in a row. But, Federal Way is a very fast pool and should make many of last year’s male NCAA medalists in the PAC-12 happy.
i hope not many parents had bought plane tickets for LA!
So have we, but from our perspective it’s about the athletes and their goals not about the parents and the cost of a change fee.
Do you really think the PAC 12 cares about parents. This will be the best option because these swimmers can post the best time for the “Big Show”. Come on man.!
Good move for the PAC 12 men. Now hopefully the MPSF will take the 2/18-21 time frame at KCAC so they are on a level playing field with the PAC 12 going into NC’s.
That’s the best move based on the circumstances. Unless Belmont receives the proper refurbishment, it would behoove the PAC 12 men to make a permanent move to Federal Way or elsewhere. CIF-SS made the move away from Belmont last year with a vow the opposite of General MacArthur’s, “We shall never return”.