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Why did Cal Poly San Luis Obispo cut its swim and dive teams?

March 8, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo announced Friday that it had cut its swimming and diving programs effective immediately, according to an email to students from Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong.

“Unfortunately, Cal Poly is not immune to the rapidly evolving and changing NCAA Division I landscape, which presents many challenges and uncertainties for collegiate athletics programs,” according  to Armstrong’s email. “The House vs. NCAA settlement, which addresses past and future compensation for student-athletes related to name, image and likeness (NIL) rights, will have a significant financial impact—resulting in a loss of at least $450,000 per year for our programs.”

A group of former and current college athletes filed the lawsuit against the NCAA because of its rules that prevented athletes from profiting from their name, image, and likeness. The parties then negotiated a settlement to distribute $2.576 billion to eligible student-athletes.

Pending approval of the settlement, likely at a hearing on April 7, NCAA Division 1 institutions will jointly fund the backpay amounts through reduced revenue distributions from the NCAA.

Cal Poly has 58 swimmers and divers on their current roster.

Armstrong also announced that scholarship commitments to current swim and dive team members will be honored throughout their time at Cal Poly. Regardless, some of Cal Poly’s highest ranked team members are likely to consider transferring to universities with swim and dive team.

 


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Don’t complain too much or Armstrong will increase revenues by boosting out of state enrollment to the point where no California residents actually attend Cal Poly. We’ve seen this before: money gets short and programs that support students are cut; this is then followed by increases in administrative compensation and an administrative hiring frenzy. Really poor leadership at Cal Poly.


10

And sports programs benefit society at large how? Or is it a corporate indoctrination of school DOGE cares none about because Billionaires own and run our public institutions? Through contracts, scouts and sports. Ban Sports, this isn’t the Roman Empire.


Sports benefit Zero regular people. And stadium workers make nothing and cities bend over for them. Sickening. Keep God and sports out of school. People freak out over 1000 trans out of 350 million people acting like the sky is falling. Christians supporting Israel but we have Local Christian Anti Semities running Pasoroblesnews.


Ban books, keep people dumb, ban Condoms, pump out poor babies and Moochy illiterate moms and dads.


-20

Can you imagine the junk a DOGE task force would discover at Cal Poly?


45

They are going to have to cut a lot more than the swim and dive team to make up for the $24M deficit. Time to reduce administrative and support salaries as well as headcount.


67

Expand merit based scholarships and convert to intramural sports programs that are student run.

All the same benefits of playing a sport, commitment, team building, cooperation, and problem solving skills can gained in an intramural sports. For a lot less dough.


Coaches should not be paid millions for a program that is essentially D1 canon fodder.


16

MrYan, I see how you might believe that all Cal Poly sports are a joke because of our football and basketball teams but we have serveral very competitive programs here. Our baseball team recently beat the #1 seed Texas A&M and Cal Poly Swim and Dive had a historic undefeated season and placed 3rd at conference. Additionally 2 swimmers qualified for NCAA b cuts and finished top 40 in the nation respectfully. Cal Poly coaches are paid pennies not millions. The AD and President need to stop spending money on their own salaries and putting police guards in all of the dorms during a holiday. Oh and I forgot to mention the million dollar concert we’re putting on. Make it make sense


15

If I was a coach and only paid in pennies, I, too, would seek employment elsewhere. Hopefully the pennies are at least rolled into 50 cent sleeves when distributed on pay day….


3

Have to cut something directly related to students, you cant expect President Armstrong to cut his outrageous compensation or reduce the bloated administration to make up the shortfall.


85