Dear President Wright, Dean Larimore, Athletic Director Harper, and Trustees:

I write to express my extreme disappointment at the decision to eliminate the men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs.  I am a graduate of the class of 1997 and a former varsity swimmer and am currently a second year student at the University of Virginia School of Law.

It is a mystery to me how a school with an endowment of over $2 billion reaches the conclusion that cutting an athletic program with an annual budget of just over $200,000 is a good idea, or a financially necessary one.  It remains a mystery to me after reading today’s press release and the attached “Q & A.”  The most striking financial aspect of the “Q & A” was the revelation that the College ended the 2002 fiscal year with a loss of 5.7% rather than 3%.  On a base of $2.5 billion, that calculates to an erroneous estimate of nearly $70 million.  How far in advance was this estimate made?  The situation reeks of poor management and foresight.  The swimming and diving programs are now paying the price for this poor management. 

Furthermore, portions of the reasoning behind the decision specifically to eliminate the swimming and diving programs given on the “Q & A” page are patently false and simply incorrect.  Some of the reasoning is insulting.  It is stated on the “Q & A” page that “we have been unable to stay competitive in swimming.”  As a former swimmer, I can attest to the truth of this statement.  However, the reasons given for the program’s inability to stay competitive are offensively inaccurate.  It is stated that “to be competitive in swimming…we would need a new facility.”  That is false.  At least two other Ivy League programs, Cornell and Columbia , have pool facilities inferior to Dartmouth ’s.  Student athletes, swimmers at least, considering attending Ivy League schools are a largely self-selecting group with priorities quite different from athletes considering attending schools in other conferences.  A swimmer looking at Ivy League schools is clearly not as concerned with swimming in a top-of-the-line facility as a swimmer looking at Indiana University, the University of Texas, or the University of Minnesota, homes of the some of the country’s best facilities.  Rather, such a student-athlete is concerned primarily with the caliber of education and fellow student present at Ivy League schools.  This was certainly true for me when I came out of high school as an All-American, state champion, and state record holding swimmer and National Honor Society student.  Among the Ivy League schools, I hope we would all agree, Dartmouth College occupies a unique place with its remote, serene, and beautiful location, its strength of community, its outstanding faculty, and its intimate size.  These qualities, I can assure you, led dozens of men’s swimming recruits to list Dartmouth as their first choice during my four years.  The vast majority of those recruits were not accepted at Dartmouth and went on to swim and study at Princeton , Harvard, and Brown.  I know this to be true because I hosted many of them on their recruiting trips to Dartmouth and kept in touch with them afterwards.  I cannot tell you how frustrating it was, as a swimmer and a student who loved Dartmouth , to host talented and intelligent recruit after talented and intelligent recruit only to learn later that they were not admitted, despite their status as a recruited applicant.  Thus, the suggestion from the “Q & A” page that “the limitations of our swimming and diving facility hinder our ability to recruit the most promising student-athletes, and ultimately to compete with our peer institutions” is simply false.  It completely misidentifies the priorities of Ivy League caliber student-athletes and misplaces the blame for the swimming program’s lack of success on the easy and silent scapegoat of the pool facilities rather than where it belongs at the feet of the admissions officers and the administrators who establish the priorities of the admissions office.

It is further puzzling to me how Division III swimming programs such as Wesleyan and Middlebury are able to build and maintain beautiful new swimming facilities while a Division I program at a larger school such as Dartmouth is not. 

President Wright, you have embarrassed Dartmouth College today.  Dartmouth , as you know, will now be the only Ivy League school without a swimming and diving program.  That is silly and shameful.  As an alumnus, I can assure you that I will not be making a financial gift to the College this year.  While I think it would be hasty to say that I will refrain from ever giving to the College again because of your decision, I do not think it would be unfair to say that your decision will certainly give me pause before I do so.

Sincerely,

Nicholas F. Gansner
Varsity swimmer, Class of 1997