Alabama All-American swimmer Cora Dupré says that she won’t finish the season with the Crimson Tide, making her the second high-profile member of the women’s team to confirm that news.
“I decided not to finish the year with Alabama because I have been struggling with my health, and I feel that I need to take a while to focus on my health,” Dupré told SwimSwam
A senior, Dupré originally made a verbal commitment to Texas, but ultimately began her career with Indiana in the 2019-2020 season. She won the Big Ten Title in the 200 free that season as a freshman. After NCAAs were canceled that year she joined former Indiana assistant Coley Stickels at Alabama, where he was head coach. He resigned just a few weeks after Dupré’s first meet with Alabama, though.
That season ended with in a trio of top 8 finishes at the SEC Championships and a 7th place finish in the 100 free at the NCAA Championships.
The 2020-2021 season, the first with Margo Geer as full-time head coach of the program, was Dupré’s most successful yet on the national stage. After a 5th-place finish in both the 50 free and 100 free at SECs, she rolled to new personal bests in both races at NCAAs. That included 5th place points in the 50 free (21.47) and 4th place points in the 100 free (47.08).
She also raced on the Alabama 800 free relay, 200 free relay, 400 merely relay, and 400 free relay, all of which earned All-America honors. The 200 free relay finished in 2nd place and the 400 free relay finished in 3rd place.
Those relays also included Morgan Scott, a 5th year and fellow Indiana transfer, who decided not to finish the program after seeking treatment for a torn labrum. Unlike Scott, though, Dupré theoretically has one season of eligibility remaining – the bonus year offered for athletes who competed in the 2021-2022 COVID-19 impacted season.
Dupré and Scott combined for 78 out of Alabama’s 158 individual points at last year’s NCAA Championships (Dupré 29, Scott 49), along with 8 crucial relay legs. The team still has World Championships medalist Rhyan White on deck as a 5th year, along with sophomore breaststroker Avery Wiseman and 5th year sprinter Kalia Antoniou, and that gives them three legs of very good medley relays, but these two losses are going to make it very difficult for the Crimson Tide to repeat their 4th-place finish from last year’s NCAA Championships.
Dupré is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, where in high school she trained with the Mason Manta Rays and Mariemont High School.
The fruit of a poison tree… start @ Mason follow the trail of women swimmers you find that they’re microwaved.. in training prior / during/after… Be quiet say less you can hear the conviction.. whenever you being told you need a sportsphysch to be functional and just get thru practice…etc 🥵
When swimmers don’t even want to stick around for 5 more weeks to do SECs (and in terms of workload – those are the easiest 6 weeks of the year) … things are not good.
Let me guess this is somehow Coley’s fault?
The Margo effect
Might be more the NCAA Convention effect, per following excerpt from Riley Overend’s 1/12/23 SwimSwam article on the NCAA decision to backtrack on ease of making a second transfer:
“Second-time transfers will have to provide proof of a physical injury, mental health condition, or other “exigent circumstances that clearly necessitate” an immediate departure, such as abuse or sexual assault.”
“…proof of a physical injury, mental health condition,” sound a lot like a “labrum” injury and “health.” It will be interesting to follow any movement by Morgan and/or Cora, whether to another college, another coach or into athetic retirement. Best wishes to all.
i wonder if she was as unhappy as the other girls on the team, heard the team is super toxic now
It all starts with the leader. This issue stems from the negligence of the AD to hire the correct person for the job. Assistant coaches can only do so much…
wheels fell off the bus at bama
Without saying or giving too much away, I can say that the kid I sent there is not happy. I do not think this is the case with everyone swimming there, but hate it for my kid.
My child is extremely happy at Bama! The team has great chemistry. #RTR
Wow. From the team that arguably had last year’s best performance to “super toxic” and “wheels off the bus,” all in 9 months, all without stating any justifying facts to back it up. I don’t know, but I’m not convinced that these posters do either.
Is there some basis to blame Geer’s personality or training style for a labrum tear in one athlete or the … “health” of another person, who apparently in 3 years went from home training in Ohio to commitment to Texas to changing to Indiana, to doing the Stickels two-step to follow Coley to Tuscaloosa to announcing a break for “health” just over 2 months from what would be the season culminating SCY meet?
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Wishing you the best as you heal Cora!!