Dear Members of the Board of Trustees:

     I am deeply disturbed and angered by the College's recent announcement that

it will no longer support the sport of swimming. I represented Dartmouth on

the men’s swimming team from 1987 through 1991, and I served as co-captain

during my senior year. It was a highlight of my experience at the College.

Although the administration has stated that the decision to eliminate

support for the swimming program is in the best interest of the College and

its other athletic teams, it is clear that it was made by people unfamiliar

with the sport and without obtaining input from alumni or students. The

decision was made behind closed doors, by administrators who have short

sightedly rationalized eliminating support for a centuries old sport in

order to resolve a temporary budget problem. The decision is unfair and

inequitable. It unfairly penalizes the sport of swimming for the economics

of the times while leaving all other sports programs unscathed. The Board

of Trustees should reverse the decision of the administration immediately

before the manner in which the decision was made, and the decision itself,

forever damages the College's reputation in national athletic and scholastic

communities and its relationship with its own students, alumni, athletes,

and prospective students.

     Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the decision is the way in which it

was made. If the swimming alumni had known that such a decision was being

contemplated, we would have come to the defense of our sport and would have

had an opportunity to suggest other less drastic ways to deal with the

issues that the administration has cited to support elimination of the

sport. Unfortunately, we were not given an opportunity to voice our views

or to tackle any perceived problems before College administrators made the

draconian decision to eliminate all support for Dartmouth’s swimming teams.

Evidently these College administrators thought that it was not worth

consulting the alumni about this decision, that the alumni would not object,

or these administrators decided they would not listen to any objections that

were raised. We are left to defend our sport now, after the fact, and left

with no choice other than to ask the Board of Trustees to intervene to

reverse a decision that should not have been made without first consulting

the alumni.

     The sport of swimming is one of the oldest sports in the world. Although

swimming was not included in the original Olympic Games, the ancient Greeks

and Romans both practiced the sport and held it in high regard among

athletic pursuits. In fact, Plato is reported to have considered a man who

did not know how to swim to be uneducated. Swimming also was revered as a

sport in old Great Britain. The great Lord Byron was an avid swimmer who

considered his crossing of the Hellespont to be his greatest achievement,

even greater than his literary achievements. Literary giants such as Jack

London and Edgar Allen Poe were accomplished swimmers who considered the

sport to be one of the finest. Native Americans also were noted to be

excellent swimmers who contributed greatly to the development of the sport.

They are credited with introducing the crawl stroke, which is now the

fastest stroke in the world, to Europeans during a swimming exhibition in

Great Britain in 1844.

     Today swimming is one of the most popular sports in the world. Every four

years, Americans are riveted to their televisions while watching the

swimming events held during the Olympic Games. People all over the world

engage in the sport of competitive swimming -- many on a daily basis. In

Australia, the sport is so well respected that swimmers are treated much

like professional football players are treated in the United States.

Swimming is also widely considered to be one of the healthiest sports in the

world. Unlike other college sports in which injuries abound, swimming

involves relatively few injuries. Swimming promotes cardiovascular and

muscular development without stressing the joints and bones. In fact, many

collegiate swimmers continue to swim and compete long after college and well

into their nineties.

     Dartmouth College has supported the sport of swimming since the early part

of the twentieth century, and the members of the Ivy League had swim teams

competing against one another even before the league was officially formed

in 1945. The Ivy League has consistently produced some of the finest and

fastest swimmers in the world, including a number of recent Olympians.

Dartmouth was a swimming powerhouse in the Ivy League in the late 1960s and

throughout the 1970s. Since that time, the swimming program has not fared

as well in competition within the Ivy League, due in part to the fact that

the College eliminated almost all recruiting support for the swimming

program almost five years ago. Nevertheless, Dartmouth continues to attract

outstanding swimmers who excel individually against their rivals in the

league. Dartmouth swimmers devote extraordinarily long hours training in

order to represent Dartmouth while pursuing their sport. Dartmouth

currently has 53 men and women on its swimming teams. These men and women

have foregone other opportunities, including college scholarship

opportunities, to swim for Dartmouth. They have voluntarily invested their

time and talents for the privilege of representing Dartmouth in athletic

competition. For many of these swimmers, this privilege is the culmination

of a long swimming career and a lifelong dream.

     College administrators certainly have the power and the authority to

unilaterally destroy the swimming program at Dartmouth. After all, it is a

politically weak sport in the college sports pantheon. It does not generate

revenue, and it does not have powerful lobbyists roaming the halls of

Parkhurst and the athletic department. The College certainly can destroy

the sport. But if the College does so, it must follow through after this

step and destroy all of those other athletic programs, which, like swimming,

do not generate revenue to support themselves and have facilities in need of

replacement or repair. In fact, the College should go further and destroy

all programs that, although beneficial and supported by students and alumni,

do not generate revenue to support themselves! The swimming program is no

different than these other programs, except perhaps for the fact that it has

existed at Dartmouth for far longer than many of these other programs.

     Although the Dartmouth swimming program is not the strongest program at the

College, or in the Ivy League, there are those who love it! I cannot sit

idly by, watching silently as the College eliminates a longstanding valuable

sports program simply for the sake of budgetary expediency. The decision to

eliminate the swimming program is unfair!! It is unfair to the swimmers on

the teams. It is unfair to the coaches. It is unfair to the alumni. Most

importantly, it is unfair to current and future generations of students who

will not have the opportunity to participate in the sport of swimming at

Dartmouth.

     I do not doubt that the College administrators who made this decision have

acted with good intentions. They have a job to perform, and they are

focusing on solving current problems facing their respective departments at

the College. But what about the future? The Board of Trustees is entrusted

with the power and the responsibility to ensure that decisions made by the

administration, such as this one, do not sacrifice the long term best

interests of the College at the altar of short term achievement. The Board

of Trustees has a duty to all current and future students and alumni of the

College to ensure that important administrative decisions such as this one

are in the best interest of the College.

     I urge each of you to exercise the responsibility with which you have been

entrusted. Carefully examine the decision to eliminate the swimming program

and determine whether this decision is in the best interest of the College.

I submit that it is not in the best interest of the College to eliminate

this valuable and longstanding athletic program that is synonymous with the

type of athletic spirit that the Ivy League was formed to promote -- pure

athleticism that is engaged in simply for the improvement of mind, body and

character with no thought of financial reward waiting in the wings. The

Board of Trustees should reverse the decision of the College administration

and reinstate the swimming program at Dartmouth.

     The Board of Trustees need not fear that it will set an undesirable

precedent by taking such an action. This situation is unique because,

unlike other programs, the swimming program has been in existence since

before the Ivy League was even formed. In fact, the members of the Ivy

League formed the league to ensure that competition among the schools in

sports, which included swimming, would remain untainted by monetary concerns

associated with scholarships. A decision to reinstate the program will

re-affirm the importance of athletics in the college system and the values

that were behind the formation of the Ivy League.

     The Board of Trustees also need not fear that a reversal of the decision

will somehow be an insult to College administrators or to the Dean of the

College. All members of the Dartmouth community understand that College

administrators are attempting to solve current problems on campus with

limited resources. If the Board of Trustees exercises its authority to

reverse the decision of these administrators, the administrators still can

hold their heads high because they have acted in a way that they thought was

best for the College. Likewise, the students and athletes at the College,

as well as the alumni, will be able to hold their heads high because they

will know that the Board of Trustees system works and that the Trustees

truly will act to protect the long term interests of the College even if it

means disagreement with the administration over how to protect those long

term interests. Finally, each of you will know that you embraced this

difficult issue and acted responsibly to protect the interests of the

College.

     The sport of swimming is a great sport. A classic sport. A sport

synonymous with the Ivy League and one of the reasons that the Ivy League

was formed. It forges and shapes the character of those involved.

Institutions of higher education in this country are often forced to make

choices about what programs, and hence what values, they will support.

These choices are not easy and tell much about the institution making them.

The institutions in this country that support a swimming program support

athleticism at its purest. All of Dartmouth's Ivy League brethren support

swimming programs. In fact, all of the other colleges and universities

among the top twenty-five institutions in this country support swimming

programs. This choice says a lot about these institutions. Dartmouth's

choice on this issue will say a lot about Dartmouth. Dartmouth should make

the right choice and choose to continue to support the sport of swimming. I

urge you to address this issue now and use your authority to make this

choice for Dartmouth.

Sincerely,

Michael D. Moore, '91