The NCAA waived certain roster and competition requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2022-2023, almost all of those rules are back in full-force, and those rules kept one first-year team out of the national championship meet this year.
In NCAA Division II swimming & diving, teams are required to have a minimum of 8 intercollegiate competitions with at least 11 participants for any members of a team to be eligible for the national championship meet. For the 2022 championships, that was reduced to 6 competitions with 8 participants.
- See the full competition minimum requirements here.
- See the 2023 NCAA Division II Women’s and Men’s Championship Qualifiers here.
First-year (revived) program Quincy University in Quincy, Illinois easily cleared the 8 competition minimum, with 15 qualifying events. Only had 10 swimmers on their men’s roster (8 freshmen and 2 sophomores), and 6 on their women’s roster. Of those 10 men, only 9 were eligible from the start of the year and competed in competitions.
That meant the Hawks were ineligible for NCAA qualification in spite of having one of the fastest 200 IMers in Division II swimming: Wyatt Walsh.
Walsh ranks 8th in D2 this year in the 400 IM with a 3:51.77 and 16th in the 200 IM with a season-best of 1:47.97.
Walsh, a freshman, is from the United Kingdom, and specifically the Millfield School, which is renowned for sending swimmers to the American collegiate system. He arrived at Quincy with a long course best of 2:05.54 in the 200 IM and 4:30.15 in the 400 IM, which convert to roughly 1:50 AND 3:57, respectively, in yards.
In spite of improvements over that conversion in his freshman year at Quincy, he is ineligible for post-season competition.
The program originally had 12 signed, but they lost 2 athletes in August (one went to Texas A&M to join the Corps of Cadets as a non-athlete, one was a Russian who ‘had bigger things on his mind in Summer 2022 than swimming’).
“This is all normal for first-year programs and we’re lucky to have the numbers that we did,” head coach Bryan Christenson told SwimSwam on Friday. “I understand the rule, it’s so you can’t just give 8 full rides a year and win nationals. However, we are not some sketchy program trying to pull a fast one. Our men had the second-highest GPA in DII at 3.56 and we have a big healthy class coming in next year and we should be 20+ on the men’s side. Our swimmer was also not on the bubble to make NCAAs, he was comfortably in with a 1:47.97 in the 200 IM and 3:51.77 in the 400 IM.”
The Quincy University coaches posted a video on Twitter on Thursday discussing the situation and how they’re moving the program forward. Coaches say they applied for a waiver from the NCAA, but that it was denied.
This is not the first time we’ve seen this happen, though it usually doesn’t happen to first year programs.
Let's talk about why we aren't headed to the NCAA Championship this year. pic.twitter.com/S5cbFLWD6C
— Quincy University Swimming (@QUHawksSwim) February 23, 2023
Christiansen elaborated on Friday about why the team couldn’t appeal the NCAA ruling.
“The qualification period ended on Sunday, February 19th, at 11:59 pm EST. The deadline to enter athletes online was Monday, February 20 at 11:59 PM EST. The NCAA did not allow appeals within 48-hours of selection (not actually a rule according to 31.1.1.1 in the rulebook), essentially leaving no ability to appeal,” Christianson said.
“Truthfully we qualified the weekend before and I submitted entries with no issue, and I made the mistake of waiting for something to bounce back. Never did. Then it took me three days to find out who I needed to talk to. That’s my fault. But that shouldn’t matter, because that deadline should be equitable for all teams.”
Quincy is not the first team to have been hit by this. In 2021, multiple teams were in danger, but rushed last-minute meets to qualify. Others, like Alaska-Fairbanks and Tiffin University, did not.
This year, it appears that Simon Fraser University, the NCAA’s lone Canadian institution, also did not meet the minimum requirements.
Observation:
For a first-year team to have a swimmer with a time to qualify for the NCAA Championships is already an impressive outcome. Pragmatically speaking, Quincy could’ve stuck any two or three members of the football team on their official roster and had them cannonball off the blocks a few times and been eligible.
I understand the intent of the rule, but for a first year team that is clearly attempting to align with those principles (10 swimmers is a big haul for a first year program), this is a situation where a waiver was warranted.
In a similar situation here in WV, inherited a very small program coming back from being cut and Covid.
Recruiting is limited because it is not fair to recruit a potential qualifier without knowing if we can jump from 2-3 athletes to 12 in a single recruiting cycle.
We did swim a few Rugby players to or a few meets, mainly to field relays and generate support for the team.
There’s no rule saying a dog can’t swim competitively, right? You can see where I’m going with this
This rule should be reviewed and waivers should be more seriously considered by the committee, I believe they denied almost all waivers no matter the circumstance, it would be interesting to see who’s on the committee because I’m sure self interest weighs in, a spot given to this athlete could take away from one of their own qualifiers since there are only a certain number of spots. Also, there are a LOT of schools just having other departments athletes jump in and swim the 50 free, it’s almost like he’s being punished for not doing that! Hope to see you qualified next season!!
This rule needs to be reviewed before we lose more programs like Saint Leo or University… Read more »
Quincy should print this article on a t-shirt and have Wyatt wear it on the podium next year when he wins the 4 IM.
What is going on at SFU? Been a tumultuous past couple years losing their coach, their best swimmers, and now this.
Braden, agree with you 1000 percent on this. But, did you really expect the NCAA to use common sense here?
While I get having football players do cannonballs to make the roster, it shouldn’t have to come to that. Gaming the rules shows ill intent, Quincy played by the rules and they’re getting punished for it.
I dont understand how the intent of this rule helps student athletes? Seems to be hurting smaller, struggling or new programs