Katie Reing
Coming soon to the Dixon Center near you. a swim team. For the first time in Cabrini College history the athletic center on campus known as the “Dixon Center” will open its doors this spring to what the colleges hopes in time to be a new intercollegiate sport. With financial support from the college and NCAA competitive swimming additions to the already existing pool, a new swim club team will form second semester this year.
When the Dixon Center opened in April of 1998, “It wasn’t a priority to add a new sport,” Leslie Danehy, the associate athletic director, said. “The college wanted to improve the other athletic programs. Now the college is supportive of a swim team and they expect it to come close to the level of the other programs,” states Danehy. Although the team could not compete in any type of Pennsylvania Athletic Conference championship, they would compete against a few colleges in the PAC that do have swim teams and other colleges in the region.
There were a few steps the college needed to take before the program could reach this state. First, the program must start with a swim club team. This spring a new coach will be hired to take full action to develop an intramural team and prepare for unofficial meets against competitive schools in fall 2002. The coach, who has not yet been chosen, will have one full year to recruit and Danehy said she hoped by the fall of 2003 there would be a full varsity team. NCAA rules state that each new sport must have one full year club status before becoming an actual sport of the college. “If the club team does take off, competitive swimming additions such as “touch pads” to mark the swimmers’ finish time, and score boards will be added to the pool,” Danehy said. Although the pool is not Olympic size, it is however an official NCAA 25-yard short-course pool that is capable of holding meets.
The college has been laying the basis for a swim program over the past four years. Starting in September 1998 water aerobic classes took off. Aquatic director Colleen Poole and assistant aquatic director Miriam Hansen run these classes. In the fall of 1999, official credit classes were begun at the college. The classes include swimming in the fall semester and lifeguarding in the spring semester, both taught by Poole. Most of the time it is outside community members, who are allowed to join the Dixon Center, who come to the aerobic classes. “We would love to see some more students out here. We are trying to start a new water cardio class for all out-of-season athletes that would target every major muscle group for a full body workout,” Poole said. Poole also said that Eastern College recreational aquatic program runs its program out of our pool. “They play everything thing from water polo to water basketball. Cabrini students are welcomed to come join the Eastern students and we hope that our students begin to take advantage of this program in the near future.”
Other then outside community members, there are five local schools that use the pool for swim practice and meets 3-7 p.m. Monday thru Friday, during the months of November thru February. Both the teams and community members pay fees to use the pool, which is a great way to offset the price of taking care of the pool. A pool is expensive to maintain and by allowing the community to purchase memberships, additional expenses are avoided for students. A copy of the water aerobic classes and times of operation for the pool can be picked up at the front desk of the Dixon Center or online.
