Women’s swimming and diving is still in the works to be Georgia State’s next sponsored sport and could be officially announced within the next month, Athletic Director Cheryl Levick told The Signal Wednesday.
Levick said Georgia State still needs one additional sponsored female sport and said it is looking probable that it will be women’s swimming and diving.
“It is the right next sport,” Levick said on swimming and diving.
“We’re just trying to figure out when we put it in here because we have to hire a coach, first, [and] give that coach a year or so recruiting before we can bring in a team. So, it’s about a three-year process to get a team fully up and running,” she said.
Levick said Athletics did an analysis of the female undergraduate population at the university asking questions such as what sports they are interested in and sports they would participate in. She said swimming and diving was the top answer, not only for the university, but for the conference and region.
Levick said it is not definite that the sport will be added because she is waiting on some “final numbers” before announcing swimming and diving as an official Georgia State sport. She said she may be able to announce it officially within the next 30 days, however.
“I would like to do this as quickly as possible,” Levick said on getting swimming and diving an official Georgia State sport.
There was speculation that the sport would not be added despite the university making an official announcement that the sport was coming.
John McElwain, the Sun Belt Associate Commissioner, told The Signal last November he was worried about swimming being sponsored because of teams leaving the conference, like Western Kentucky, and there needs to be at least five swim teams teams within the conference to sponsor the sport. Now, this seems not to be a problem. (Click here for more about swimming in the Sun Belt).
Georgia State Athletics announced swimming and diving along as upcoming programs in December 2012 and pushed men’s cross country and track and field programs to club status as a result.
Swimming was a sport at Georgia State from 1976 through 1991 before being cut by the university (Click here for more history about Georgia State swimming).
Where will the pool be located?