Only 1 senior, Grant Casey, remains on Brown University’s men’s swimming & diving roster. The class of 2018 began as a group of 10, by last season there were only 4 juniors remaining, and now there is just 1 left.
Riley Springman didn’t compete for Brown this season. The other two departures from last year’s junior class, Talbot Jacobs and Bryce Campanelli, competed in the fall semester but have recently been removed from the team’s public roster.
We have reached out to Brown’s media relations staff, Brown head coach Chris Ip, and all 3 would-be-seniors who departed the team to determine the nature of their departure, but as of posting have not received any responses. We will update this article if we receive further information.
In early December, Brown launched an investigation into hazing allegations involving the men’s swim team, according to the campus newspaper. Brown said they learned of the hazing allegation on November 14th, but as late as November 29th, said that no student had come forward directly to them. We have been unable to ascertain whether any of these departures were related to that hazing investigation.
On Wednesday morning, Brown sent the following statement as a follow-up to the hazing allegations:
Since the investigation of hazing allegations involving the Brown men’s swimming and diving team launched on Nov. 29, Brown Athletics has taken interim measures based on information gathered by the University’s Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards to date.
Among actions taken, the men’s team will not participate in a swim meet scheduled for Jan. 13, 2018. The investigation will continue in the weeks ahead. Privacy laws and policies prevent the University from disclosing disciplinary actions involving individual students. Students found responsible for conduct code violations are held accountable through individual and/or collective disciplinary action.
Brown was scheduled to host a tri meet with Penn and Harvard on January 13th. That men’s meet will now become a Penn-Harvard dual, while the women’s meet will remain a tri.
Junior Waylon Jin also competed in the fall semester but is no longer on the roster. On Wednesday afternoon, Jin sent SwimSwam a statement saying that he has ‘decided to leave the team to focus on his academic interests and other passions.”
The swimmers’ results from last year’s Ivy League Championships:
- Riley Springman– 200 fly (6th – 1:46.68), 200 IM (11th – 1:48.24), 100 fly (15th – 48.97)
- Bryce Campanelli – 1 meter springboard (13th – 232.15), 3-meter springboard (13th – 249.10)
- Waylon Jin – 100 breast (15th – 56.81), 200 breast (21st – 2:04.84), 50 free (29th – 22.08)
Jacobs didn’t compete at last year’s Ivy League Championships, but was the team’s 4th-best 200 backstroker (1:49.80) and 500 freestyler (4:33.78) in the fall semester this season. Campanelli finished 2nd on the 1-meter and 3rd on the 3-meter at this year’s Brown vs. MIT dual.
The team’s one remaining senior, Grant Casey, leads the team in the 1000 free this season with a 9:34.52.
Update: On Wednesday morning, Brown sent the following statement as a follow-up to the hazing allegations:
Updated: Jin sent SwimSwam a statement on Wednesday afternoon, which has been updated above
This senior class was recruited in Fall 2013 by the prior coach, Peter Brown, who abruptly left the program with no notice after being there for many years, in the summer right before these young men arrived on campus – Summer 2014. The new coach, Chris Ip, was named just days before school started. Chris is a great guy and has worked hard, but he is a very different personality than Peter Brown. These swimmers, who were recruited by Peter Brown, showed up to find a very different kind of coach on the pool deck in Chris Ip. Not picking sides, but choosing a college team is all about “fit” and the kids that picked Brown (and Brown picked them)… Read more »
This is your second comment where you’ve used the word “disbanded” so do you have an agenda or what? Given the national comcern about hazing and drinking on college campuses, Brown has handled this incident in a fair and evenhanded manner, carefully sorting through the inaccuracies and sensationalism in the initial Brown student newspaper report – for instance, no team member was taken to the emergency room and no vandalism was done to Brown property unless breaking bottles against a bronze statue counts as vandalism. Among other things, as punishment, the team’s winter training trip and meet against Harvard and Penn were cancelled.
Sure, some alcohol with Tabasco sauce (milk in the case of one freshman) was consumed and… Read more »
A single person with an agenda brought forth the accusation of hazing – nothing too severe happened. Team supporter has accurate facts. If the freshmen are the “victims” why are they also being punished? I swam for a high level D1 program – we did not have many seniors left by the end. Swimming D1 is hard and the competition is brutal. I am not surprised that people leave to actually try to enjoy a year of two of college. Someone dropping a ~ 30hr per week commitment to focus on grades and a future career should not be considered a failure. Nobody at work cares how fast I was in 1986 – they care about what I know and… Read more »
My club coach used to encourage us to use swimming as a tool to get into college. I went and swam D1, but two of my best friend went to Yale and UChicago, both for swimming. Obviously, Yale is an ivy, and my friend swam her first 2 years before deciding to stop because she wanted to explore other things. She could do swimming and school, but there were also many clubs she wanted to join that she didn’t have the chance to because swimming took up so much time. My friend at UChicago, a D3 school, picked UChicago purely for the academics. She didn’t really want to swim in college. However, she ended up enjoying the college environment and… Read more »
The Head Swim Coach for Yale University Men & Women will tell you differently. According to him speaking in October, in 5 years at the helm, he has had 1 swimmer quit his program.
This is not uncommon at Ivy league schools. I was only one of two seniors on the Brown team in the 1970’s. This is especially common with the establishment of new coaches, such as coach Ip. Recruits from previously untapped geographic areas displace upperclassmen on the depth charts, and some fall off the twig, or life supersedes athletic etc. I do not think that kids use swimming only to gain admission and quit. Swimming even 1 or 2 years at college is too much of a commitment to do casually. From what i’ve heard Grant Casey sets the training ethic on the Brown team, and I hope he has a good senior year.
As an Ivy coach in the early 2000’s I disagree. Its not unusual to have a small class — one year under Kredich the Brown men had a class of 2 — but it is unusual to see this much attrition. Story worthy? Maybe, maybe not, but its definitely unusual.
The same thing happens regularly at George Mason University. The class of 2013 and 2016 had little to no seniors.
Remember that Ivy League athletes do not receive athletic scholarships so are not bound by financial obligations to swim. In fact, the coaches and colleges encourage personal growth and academic exploration. These kids aren’t going to be swimming forever. And I suspect your anecdotal evidence regarding admissions applies to multiple colleges with rigorous admission standards- not just the Ivies.
this article just seems very invasive to the student and not of any benefit. Why are you pursuing a non NCAA qualifier like it is ESPN investigative reporting on Baker Mayfield getting arrested. Brown does not offer scholarships and therefore a student is only swimming for the passion and has an ambition far greater than Grand Prix swimming when he graduates. There is at least one Ivy that has lower swimmer attrition than any other school in the NCAA
Which school is that?
previous swimswam story regarding the entire Princeton roster from the Fall 2016 returned for the 2017-2018 season and how unusual that is in college swimming.
Does the Ivy League swim teams tend to lose people who decide not to swim because they want to focus on academics, or want to have more free time to explore what else is going on at their school?
I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that kids use swimming to get into Ivy League schools when they’re really not all that interested in swimming in college. Not enough anecdotal evidence to call it a “trend,” but it does happen.
Oh, I think there’s more than plenty anecdotal evidence to call this a trend. Perhaps an uncommon trend, but a tendency nonetheless. Lots of kids on my old club team always talked about how they wanted to do this to get their hook into an Iny.
the frosh to senior class fluctuation in ivies tends to result in just a handful of kids staying on. I don’t think going from 11 to 1 or 2 is all that unusual. intense academics, tend to be very driven in other areas as well, and just general burnout are all factors.
You’re wrong. It’s HIGHLY unusual. I cannot remember an Ivy team with only one senior and that goes back more than 40 years. That’s why it’s a story. Look at the other men’s roster in the league. You’ll find that the senior class is more typically in the six to ten range on the rosters. Princeton, a team that was in the news last year, has ten seniors and Harvard has nine. Meanwhile, the Brown women’s team has seven seniors.
My freshman year in the Ivy League we only had one senior swimmer, I’m not sure were you’re pulling your facts from.
I went to an Ivy where the class above me finished with 2 and the senior class my freshman year finished with 4. Saw it on other teams too.
There’s a lot more attrittion than at schools where kids are getting scholarships. But going 10>1 is pretty unusual, and it’s certainly unusual going from 4 juniors to 1 senior. Most kids who quit along the way pack it in after freshman year, or maybe two. This article seems to hint pretty strongly that the recent departures are connected to a hazing investigation but I would have let this article sit until they could report something of substance there.
You are very correct that there is something going on. There are allegations of hazing (no surprise), but also coverups at the hands of some of the team. The evidence is incontrovertible, as it is in the form of recordings. It is the coverup that is what is so bad about this and it is the coverup that should get the team disbanded. In other situations, coaches are fired too, as they SHOULD have known what is going on…
We went from 18-5 in my four years. A few transferred for academic reasons, others just had enough of the work.
This is written as if upperclassmen departing swim teams in the ivy league is uncommon…