Scared of Realignment

Gratuitous headline photo loosely tied to Texas A&M

Is college swimming staring down it's Ragnarok?

While the college football world is completely abuzz with rumors that Texas A&M, in the Swimming World we only have one article from TSC to put the swimming information in perspective. Last week, as Georgia Tech coaches gathered for our all staff meeting, our Athletic Director made a passing reference to realignment while stating that we are committed to the ACC. And then it was done.

I wish I had some extra special information to put in this blog, but the truth is that I am as scared and bewildered as everybody. When I read in a college swimming thread that Georgia Tech was supposedly one of the teams they could use to form the SEC super conference, at first I laughed. Then I thought "could it be true?". 

On the one hand, maybe nothing bad will happen at all. Maybe its just a reorganization of chairs that happens from time to time with conferences. But its hard to feel completely safe when the decisions are being made primarily on the basis of football (and maybe basketball, a little).

The last time around, there were certainly some positives that came out of realignment. To speak specifically to the ACC, Virginia Tech makes way more sense geographically and educationally in the ACC. Their swim team has flourished since switching conferences. Boston College, on the other hand, didn't even send their best male swimmers to the ACC championships last year, a curious decision given their membership. 

So I'm hoping its all good news, that Texas A&M makes the SEC that much faster, that Texas and Mizzou men find a conference meet to go to and that Kansas, and Iowa State don't get left out in the cold. I'm hoping that this decision doesn't ricochet off in so many other directions and put programs at risk. To think that's exactly what is going to happen given the atmosphere in college swimming, however, is almost completely naive.