Growing Pains for College Club Swimming

Commentary: Growing Pains for College Club Swimming – Are Former NCAA Swimmers the Cause, or the Scapegoat?

By David Chen

During the 2026 TYR College Club Swimming National Championship, controversy arose about former varsity swimmers competing on behalf of Cal Poly Swim Club and UNC (Chapel Hill) Club Swimming throughout the College Club Swimming (CCS) group. Their particular person and staff performances sparked a broader dialog about whether or not they need to be allowed to compete within the nationwide championship or be members of CCS in any respect.

The athletes on the middle of the controversy took completely different paths to becoming a member of CCS. Some arrived after their varsity applications had been minimize. Others joined after finishing their NCAA varsity eligibility. What all of them had in widespread, although, was easy: none of them had been members of their respective faculty’s varsity staff through the 2025–26 season, and all complied with the present CCS eligibility and amateurism rules.

During the meet and within the weeks that adopted, articles, social media posts, and conversations on the pool deck had been full of discussions concerning the league’s future. A rising variety of voices have portrayed former varsity swimmers as outsiders whose presence threatens the tradition and aggressive stability of CCS, particularly at Nationals, slightly than accepted members.

The central declare is that former NCAA athletes are taking alternatives away from the “typical” membership athlete by filling restricted entry spots, inflicting quicker National Qualifying Times (NQTs), and setting untouchable data that alienate the “true” membership swimmer.

The frustration is comprehensible. CCS athletes are watching qualifying requirements tighten, acquainted benchmarks transfer out of attain, data fall, and staff standings shift. Those modifications could make the league really feel much less acquainted than it did even a couple of years in the past. But when a group modifications shortly, probably the most seen rationalization doesn’t all the time result in the appropriate analysis.

Before CCS considers altering its guidelines or drawing traces to exclude at the moment eligible members, it’s value analyzing whether or not these fears are supported by the league’s realities right this moment. Any change in coverage that might take away eligibility from a bunch of members ought to require a excessive burden of proof: the proof should present that the participation of athletes with prior varsity expertise causes clear, long-term, and vital hurt to the remainder of the members.

As somebody who has been concerned with CCS, both as an athlete or as a member of its governance board, since its founding, I’m conscious about the shifting dynamics of its membership. I hope to clear up some misconceptions concerning the influence of former varsity swimmers and discover how CCS can proceed to protect its tradition whereas accommodating its speedy progress in reputation.

CCS Membership Has Exploded Post-COVID

CCS Nationals has gotten undeniably quicker and more durable to qualify for. Some of the qualifying times for the women’s events in 2026 are corresponding to the lads’s on the first official CCS National meet in 2018, throughout my freshman 12 months.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, CCS has seen great progress in reputation. Athletes across the nation realized they may proceed the team-based environment from highschool with out the time dedication required of varsity competitors, and CCS’s membership numbers soared.

Total CCS membership grew from 6,089 athletes within the 2021-22 season to 9,389 in 2025-26. The variety of golf equipment has additionally continued to develop, from 158 registered golf equipment in 2021-22 to 229 CCS member golf equipment this 12 months, and each numbers proceed to extend. This is unbelievable for a corporation that has but to have fun its 10^th birthday, however such accelerated progress inevitably comes with some pains.

Even although CCS membership rose by over 50% over that span, deliberate capability for every nationwide meet has remained comparatively fixed. An athlete capability restrict was instituted following the 2022 National Meet, which had 2000 athletes. The massive variety of athletes required flighted heats to make the occasion manageable for officers and volunteers, and post-meet suggestions from athletes and organizers overwhelmingly favored a single preliminary session with diminished capability. The deliberate capacities by 12 months had been: 1,750 in 2023, 1,600 in 2024, 1,500 in 2025, and 1,650 in 2026.

As membership grows whereas Nationals’ capability stays fastened, a smaller proportion of CCS athletes can attend the meet annually – from 33% of membership in 2022 to 17.5% in 2026. This is a discount of over 1,400 athletes if the 2022 proportion had been saved for 2026. By this metric alone, it must be anticipated that attending Nationals will get tougher yearly.

CCS Membership Is Vastly Outperforming Expectations

But there’s additionally one other issue driving NQT problem, one which first requires some context about how they’re created.

Starting with the 2023 version of the meet, NQTs are decided based mostly on the prior 12 months’s Nationals outcomes by means of a multi-step course of. First, a base time for the occasion is ready, sometimes between the 110^th and 130^th locations from the prior 12 months’s Nationals. Then this base time is adjusted to make sure comparatively equal problem with comparable occasions. Finally, a top quality evaluation is carried out to find out how lots of the prior 12 months’s nationwide qualifiers would have certified below the brand new requirements, to make sure the requirements are cheap.

If former NCAA swimmers had been the principle purpose NQTs had been getting quicker, then eradicating the highest finish of the meet ought to considerably change the next 12 months’s qualifying requirements. If the influence of outlier top-end expertise this 12 months is as vital as claimed, then we’d see a change in how 2027 NQTs are calculated. However, eradicating the highest eight finishers in each occasion would change the bottom time for the 2027 NQTs by lower than 1% in 21 of the 22 non-distance and non-200-stroke occasions, representing an absolute change of 0.1 or 0.2 seconds in most occasions. This is lower than the margins the committee has traditionally adjusted base occasions by through the NQT creation course of.

In different phrases, even in a 12 months when the top-end competitors was supposedly an outlier, eradicating these swims would go away the 2027 NQTs basically unchanged.

What about the remainder of the sector? Looking at athletes on the qualifying margins supplies a greater evaluation of league depth than the profitable time or the time to make finals at Nationals. In the 2022-2023 season, there have been 149 particular person swims between 49.00 and 50.00 within the males’s 100-yard freestyle. In 2025-2026, there have been 238. For the ladies’s 100-yard freestyle, there have been 109 particular person swims between 57.00 and 58.00 in 2022-2023. By 2025-2026, that quantity has grown to 182. Within the span of a four-year undergraduate diploma, whether or not by means of quicker incoming freshmen or the development of upperclassmen, the variety of CCS athletes able to hitting these benchmark ranges elevated by greater than 60% general. These basic developments are constant in all occasions, and for each women and men. The males’s occasions are more durable as a result of extra individuals are inside hanging distance of NQTs, so the requirements should hold tempo to make sure the meet doesn’t dramatically exceed capability.

Even so, regardless of the most effective efforts to undertaking the variety of athletes who will qualify for that 12 months’s Nationals, CCS membership has outperformed even the best expectations. Since 2023, the variety of athletes who’ve achieved the brand new NQTs has exceeded projections from the standard evaluation by a median of about 37% each season.  The 2025-2026 season continued that sample. The  NQTs for 2026 had been set in order that 1,135 athletes from 2025 would have certified. When all was mentioned and executed, 1,625 athletes attended the 2026 National meet.

This means that “swimflation” isn’t just a top-end phenomenon. The Nationals-qualifying area is deeper and shifting what typical club-level velocity appears like. More CCS athletes are posting occasions that after distinguished a smaller group of qualifiers.

Former NCAA Athletes Are a Small Contingent of CCS Membership; Their Impact Is Limited

Next, I wish to tackle the concept that former varsity athletes are “taking over” CCS Nationals. A evaluate of the entry record from the 2026 National Meet reveals that simply 106 of 1625 athletes, or 6.5% of Nationals individuals, had beforehand competed at an NCAA Division I, II, or III program. Fifty-seven athletes, or 3.5%, had prior Division I expertise. If you exclude Cal Poly’s 12 athletes who joined the membership after their varsity program was minimize, that determine drops to five.8% of the general National athletes with any NCAA expertise and a pair of.8% with Division I expertise.

Photo Courtesy: Bridger Bell

This is increased than their share of general CCS membership: an estimated 3.6% have varsity expertise and 1.5% have Division I expertise. However, the truth that this group of athletes’ proportion of entries at Nationals exceeds their membership proportion shouldn’t instantly be a trigger for alarm, given their increased expertise flooring.

This isn’t a dramatic overperformance, neither is it pushing out the athletes with out varsity expertise: the proportional distinction equates to an additional 47 athletes with varsity expertise at Nationals this 12 months. Meanwhile, the remainder of the CCS membership is outperforming NQT projections by a whole bunch of athletes.

When it involves incomes a second swim within the finals session at Nationals, 63 former varsity athletes scored particular person factors, out of 408 whole particular person scorers at Nationals. Again, it isn’t a shock that athletes with prior varsity staff expertise are outperforming the sector, however to recommend that the complete Nationals finals session is saturated with them additionally overstates their presence. This nonetheless leaves 345 athletes who scored factors for his or her membership amongst 1519 non-varsity athletes at Nationals, or a scoring fee of twenty-two.7%. This isn’t far off from the general fee of 25%. For a national-level competitors the place some occasions can have over 200 entries, scoring swims are nonetheless fairly attainable for the athletes with out varsity expertise.

Former varsity athletes usually tend to rating or make finals, however they haven’t taken alternatives for second swims away to the extent that warrants their removing. The few exceptionally proficient athletes had been seen by means of their profitable performances. But focusing solely on a couple of outlier people doesn’t present an correct image of the sector’s general competitiveness.

The Problem with Drawing the Line at Varsity Experience

Having varsity expertise additionally isn’t a neat line that cleanly separates tiers of swimming efficiency. Some athletes with varsity expertise didn’t rating in any respect at Nationals, whereas others set quite a few National data. Former varsity athletes who dominate are usually not distinctive to the newest version of Nationals, and dominance is just not unique to varsity expertise. Here are only a few examples:

Peter Paulus used his experiences with CCS and CU Swim & Dive (University of Colorado – Boulder) in 2022 to secure a roster spot with the University of Texas’ varsity squad in 2023. But earlier than becoming a member of Texas, he was nonetheless a “true” membership athlete with out varsity expertise, gained the lads’s 50-yard butterfly by practically a full second, and set a CCS document that appeared untouchable on the time.

Only two years later, Thomas Askew from Club Swimming at UGA (University of Georgia) broke that record on his way to four individual titles and a clean sweep of the men’s butterfly records, additionally as a “true” membership swimmer. He then earned a spot on Georgia’s varsity roster in 2025 and returned to CCS in 2026 after post-House roster reductions.

Delaney Carlton from Georgia Tech Club Swim accomplished her profession on UNC-Chapel Hill’s varsity staff and set CCS abuzz with the primary sub-51.00 girls’s 100-yard freestyle in 2025.

You might even return to the early days of CCS, again when CCS Nationals was referred to as the Collegiate Championship Meet. Alan Maher of Longhorn Swim Club (University of Texas-Austin) dropped a 1:42.97 within the 200-yard backstroke in 2012. This is the oldest acknowledged CCS National Meet document that no CCS athlete has come inside 3 seconds of since. Maher competed at an elite degree throughout his varsity swimming profession with the University of Texas. After finishing that chapter, he started graduate faculty, joined the Texas membership staff, and dominated.

Katherine Blake of Michigan Club Swimming gained the 400- and 200-yard particular person medley titles at 2026 Nationals by Ledecky-ian 10-second and 4-second margins and set a brand new CCS document within the 400-yard distance. She is taken into account a “true” membership athlete and would doubtless make most Division I rosters if she had chosen that route.

These people had been all very proficient athletes and, judging by their performances, had been racing at a unique degree from their friends. But they had been all celebrated slightly than handled as proof that the league now not belonged to “true” membership swimmers. They discovered a house in CCS, even when a few of them had been swimmers whose aggressive backgrounds don’t match neatly into the concept of the “typical” membership athlete.

I additionally wish to emphasize {that a} former varsity swimmer who joins a college membership staff, attends practices, travels with teammates, participates in membership occasions, and contributes to the staff’s social life isn’t just borrowing the CCS platform for competitors. They are collaborating in and are full members of the identical broader membership expertise as everybody else. Many present-day CCS golf equipment have one or two graduate college students who joined after exhausting their eligibility at one other varsity program, and they’re valued members of their membership’s social circles. Club swimmers with varsity expertise are nonetheless membership swimmers.

The query is just not whether or not CCS ought to serve the “traditional” membership swimmer or the quickest eligible swimmer who additionally occurs to go to the identical faculty because the membership. These two ideas are usually not mutually unique, as a result of CCS has by no means outlined membership by a velocity or expertise ceiling. That line, even when it existed, wouldn’t be any higher outlined by an athlete’s prior varsity expertise. If an athlete meets the eligibility standards and contributes to the aggressive and social expertise that CCS exists to supply, then velocity or varsity historical past alone mustn’t make them any much less of a member of the CCS group or much less deserving of the total alternatives that membership supplies.

Why Eligibility Restrictions Miss the Access Problem

Taken collectively, the info doesn’t help the concept that NQT drops or aggressive imbalance are primarily attributable to “the population competing at the top of the meet shift(ing)”. The bigger drivers of NQT problem are league-wide depth and membership progress, and elite performances have by no means been restricted to athletes with varsity expertise.

Therein lies the issue with pointing to athletes with prior NCAA expertise as the explanation for tighter qualifying requirements or unreachable data. It locations the blame on members who had no significant impact on the problems at hand and fails to handle the broader causes.

A rule change based mostly on the distinctive expertise of some would do little to resolve the general entry downside and, extra importantly, would exclude eligible athletes from the group that CCS was constructed to serve. Also misplaced within the debate is that not all former varsity athletes are setting data or profitable a number of occasions. The complaints about a couple of people dominating or altering the aggressive panorama don’t apply to them, however the advised insurance policies will nonetheless limit their eligibility.

Therefore, the problem of an more and more restrictive National Meet is an issue of league-wide depth, league growth, and stuck capacities. The greatest technique to considerably ease the strain on NQTs and enhance entry to Nationals can be to work round capability constraints and regulate the meet’s general construction. This might embody increasing to a four-day meet, decreasing the variety of particular person occasions per athlete from 4 to three, and even altering the prelims/finals format to timed finals. This, nonetheless, is a separate debate for a unique day.

How CCS Can Prepare for the Future

I don’t consider that CCS management is ignoring the altering panorama of faculty athletics. Program cuts and roster limits on the varsity degree are actual challenges that can require artistic options in the event that they occur at scale. Nor do I consider they’re ignoring the true considerations of swimmers who certified for Nationals in prior years and discover themselves on the surface trying on this 12 months.

Meanwhile, it’s truthful for CCS members to care about staff titles and document books. Those achievements matter to some athletes’ and golf equipment’ expertise at Nationals, and former varsity athletes do have an effect on them. But top-end dominance, even when seen, is just not by itself proof of league-wide hurt, nor ought to it justify broad eligibility restrictions that might apply to each former varsity athlete, together with those that are usually not profitable occasions, setting data, or altering staff standings. Rather than tightening eligibility in response to some distinctive performances, CCS ought to broaden the methods golf equipment and people are acknowledged by means of national awards that celebrate accomplishments both in and out of the pool.

It’s additionally necessary to do not forget that CCS doesn’t simply serve the athletes who qualify for Nationals, or those that may need gained a medal or made finals if a couple of quicker athletes had not attended. CCS was also not founded as an “NCAA-lite” or “NCAA Division IV”. Competition is actually an necessary facet of CCS, however the group has all the time been concerning the group constructed round swimming and holding individuals within the sport: from athletes simply getting their toes moist within the aggressive area to these chasing private bests, and everybody in between.

The varsity faculty athletics panorama has shifted dramatically over the past decade, and extra modifications are coming. Upcoming laws being debated in Congress might stabilize Olympic sports activities below the NCAA construction or place them below even better strain. The way forward for varsity faculty swimming stays unsure, and CCS must be extraordinarily cautious about implementing insurance policies that might hurt present and future CCS members based mostly on speculative projections, particularly when the proposed options don’t tackle the true root causes.

Addressing the basis causes of the signs College Club Swimming faces right this moment and will face sooner or later, corresponding to quicker qualifying occasions and a quicker meet, requires a methodical, data-supported method to reach at an correct analysis. Only then can an efficient therapy be prescribed. To accomplish that, CCS ought to take steps to observe NCAA competitors historical past, each to proceed implementing its insurance policies and determine developments as they seem.

The CCS Advisory Board has already proven that it will possibly make focused, data-supported modifications to enhance entry or tackle aggressive integrity considerations. Recent changes which have expanded Nationals’ capability embody including a half-day in 2026 and permitting small golf equipment so as to add a swimmer to finish relays at Nationals. The Advisory Board additionally eliminated intrasquad meets from NQT eligibility this previous season after falsified entries linked to intrasquads and time trial meets had been recognized following 2025 Nationals. As they’ve in these cases, CCS ought to proceed to take the heart beat of its membership and implement modifications when signs and information warrant motion.

What CCS mustn’t do is reflexively exclude in any other case eligible swimmers earlier than proving that they’re the reason for the hurt being attributed to them. Pushing former varsity athletes out of CCS in response to the distinctive performances of some people seems like a rushed response at greatest and dangerous at worst, as a result of the info at the moment don’t help the declare that their presence causes “clear, long-term, and significant harm to the rest of the membership.”

It can be this author’s hope that public opinion shifts, and that we’re kinder and extra understanding towards our fellow athletes and teammates. It could also be simple to level the finger at former varsity athletes and attribute the modifications over the previous few seasons to their presence, particularly when they’re setting data and showcasing their expertise. But neither velocity nor expertise alone ought to make an in any other case eligible athlete a goal of criticism, mistreatment, or exclusion.

Former varsity athletes, like each different member, joined CCS to proceed being a part of a staff and to compete whereas representing their faculty. CCS is without doubt one of the most particular and distinctive environments that makes that doable. And for each athlete who continued to place within the required coaching to take care of their varsity-level velocity, there is another who rediscovered their love for competitive swimming through CCS. Removing their eligibility would take away these alternatives and be a internet loss for the game of swimming.

Former NCAA swimmers are, and have all the time been, part of CCS’s story. But they don’t seem to be the reason for, nor ought to they develop into the scapegoats for, the league’s newest rising pains.

Author’s Note and Disclaimers:

All information and figures referenced on this article had been compiled from a mix of publicly out there sources, together with CCS registration rosters, Nationals entry lists, and SwimCloud and SwimTelephone outcomes, along with inner CCS documentation corresponding to NQT committee notes and NQT projection analyses from 2023–26.

David Chen is a third-year medical scholar on the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He is a CCS member competing with Swim Club UW-Madison, each as an undergraduate from 2017 to 2021 and as an expert scholar beginning in 2024. He has served on the College Club Swimming Advisory Board since 2020 as a Regional Representative and Alumni Advisor. The views and opinions expressed on this article are his and don’t symbolize the opinions of the College Club Swimming Advisory Board or its board members. This article is just not endorsed by the College Club Swimming Advisory Board and doesn’t function an official assertion from College Club Swimming, US Masters Swimming, or any of its associates.