The Minnesota Golden Gophers have been tabbed by the NCAA to host the 2014 edition of the women’s Division I NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships at the University Aquatics Center.
The pool was built in 1990, and in 21 years has hosted 6 NCAA Championship meets, ranking it among the most popular destinations for the meet in the country. Most of those events have been the men’s meet, which were held in Minneapolis in 1994, 1997, 2005, and 2007, but in the last of those years, they made history by becoming the first school in history to host both the men’s and the women’s meet in the same year (though not concurrently).
This year, the two will be split up once again, with the Gophers playing hosts for the women’s championship.
The pool has permanent seating for 1,346, which is expandable with 1,200 additional seats in temporary bleachers. Though not with the same massive seating capacity, Minnesota has a lot of cool features that make it one of the most exciting college venues in the country: notably, spectator seating running both sides of the pool. This creates a wave of noise throughout the entire facility that can engulf swimmers in the type of explosive atmosphere that makes NCAA Championship meets some of the most spectator-engaging in the world.
The center also has superb lighting and phenomenal acoustics, both rarities for pools, which lends some hope that it might pick up a live television audience. It has a 21 foot by 10 foot video display, which according to the school is the largest permanent display at any Aquatics facility in the country (to the cost of $250,000, installed in 2005).
The Dorothy L. Sheppard Pool, as the competition course is known, is 50-meters long with only a single bulkhead in the middle. When the competition course is set lengthwise at one end of the pool, that leaves 9 warmdown lanes across the width on the other side of the bulkhead. The entire pool is 8-feet deep.
The Aquatics Center also has a separate diving-specific pool, complete with a full compliment of boards, plus a dark surface to help divers with their spotting. Greg Louganis, the greatest American diver in history, called it “one of the best” indoor diving facilities in the country, alluding specifically to the lighting and the smoothness of the boards.
The biggest drawback of holding a meet in Minnesota in February is the weather; though the winter freeze is usually beginning to thaw by late March when this meet is held (average highs are around 41 degrees), it’s still much chillier than those from the more southern latitudes are used to; still, geographical variety helps swing the advantage this year toward those who have acclimated to the chilly northern winters.
In contrast, Minneapolis brings a level of accessibility that will make travel significantly easier; it has a large, directly-accessible airport to serve its metropolitan population of 3.3 million. That’s in contrast to places like Auburn, hosts of the 2012 women’s meet, which will take a few more hop-steps to reach.
Both the men’s and women’s NCAA Division I Championships will be held at the IUPUI Natatorium in Indianapolis in 2013.