Saved by the Bell: This Sinking Ship Could Use Bailout

The sink-or-swim campaign sank pretty quickly.

After Dartmouth College’s cash-strapped athletic department announced it would cut its swim teams last month, the boyfriend of one of the Big Green swimmers put the team up for sale on eBay, hoping to scrape together the $211,000 needed to keep the team afloat.

In an odd way, the plan made sense. Dartmouth’s sailing team is privately endowed. And if comic books and celebrity undergarments can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars, why not the Dartmouth swim team?

The plan went, well, swimmingly for about two days. The team’s bidding page got thousands of hits, and one (eventually withdrawn) bid of $212,000. But then, aided by the Dartmouth athletic department, some astute chap at eBay figured out that the team wasn’t the swimmer’s boyfriend’s to sell. End of auction.

Dartmouth athletic director JoAnn Harper was right, of course. Only Dartmouth, which owns the team, could properly put the team up for sale online.

Fact is, Dartmouth should. And Harvard should swoop in and buy it.

Think about it. Harvard has a $17.5 billion endowment—this in a down year. Not all of that should be spent, obviously, and there are operating costs to consider. But when you’ve got $17.5 billion to throw around, a six-figure project looks like a pack of M&Ms.

Once you buy the team, you’ve got a number of options. You could move the team to Cambridge and have them share Blodgett Pool. If the Staples Center in Los Angeles is big enough for the Lakers and Clippers and Giants Stadium can contain both the Giants and the Jets, surely Soldiers Field could support two Ivy League swim teams.

Hanover’s not that far—the athletes could continue to train at Michael Pool in New Hampshire and then drive down I-87 for home meets at Olympic-sized Blodgett Pool across the river. Harvard-Dartmouth meets could be billed as “The Battle of Blodgett.” I’d pay to attend “Blodgett Bowl I” in 2004. Wouldn’t you?

If you’re Harvard, you get the chance to pad your stats in the one area in which your athletic department is head and shoulders above the rest. Harvard’s biggest claim to fame is its 41 varsity sports—a number that leads the nation. Now add Dartmouth’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving program. Ka-ching! Just like that, we’re a couple of rugby teams, equestrain teams, archeries and a rifling program away from the big 5-0.

Of course, Dartmouth swimming doesn’t necessarily have to become a varsity team. In a time when college athletics resembles the professional ranks more and more—or so people complain—Harvard could become a pioneer by making Dartmouth swimming into its own minor league swimming affiliate. Hanover could become a site of player development, and swimmers could be “called up” to the Crimson from New Hampshire as circumstances demand.

Think about it. Within the next few years, you could read the following blurb on this very page:

“Harvard senior swimmer Elizabeth White, who had dominated the women’s 1000 free until coming down with back spasms a month ago, has completed her rehab assignment at the Crimson’s Triple A affiliate, Dartmouth. White took things easy in Hanover, coasting to third in the 1000 while not competing in the 500, opting instead to simply work herself back into shape against Columbia. White should be called up to Cambridge in time for Saturday’s meet against Penn. Harvard swimming is expected to send freshman butterfly specialist Jane Sturgeon, who has a partially torn rotator cuff, down to the minors to open up a roster spot.”

It’s an idea that, I’m convinced, will be the next big thing in college sports. Mark it down. When a starting lineup of five Triple-A UConn call-ups take Harvard men’s basketball to the Final Four in 2013, you can say that you read it here first.

In all seriousness, the death of Dartmouth swimming is a tragedy. Three coaches will lose their jobs, and 53 student-athletes will lose the activity they hold dearest. It’s a scene that occurs too often across the country now. When wallets dry up, or when Title IX requirements become impossible to fulfill, the small sports are the first to go. Fencing, gymnastics and water polo teams often vanish when more popular sports remain unaffected.

And in the ultimate paradox, the teams that supposedly best represent the amateur idea—sports without any material reward—wind up entertaining the issue most saddeningly reminiscent of the professional ranks: contraction.

—Staff writer Martin S. Bell can be reached at msbell@fas.harvard.edu.