Tulane University’s Reily Student Recreation Center, which includes the Reily Natatorium, was closed in March of 2020, citing recommendations from the CDC. In July of that same year, the majority of the Reily Center was reopened with new COVID protocols in place.
The pool, however, remained closed due to “scheduled maintenance” and still remains closed. This means that the Tulane University Women’s Swim and Dive Team have been without a pool on campus for over a year and a half. During that time, the team has had to travel 10 hours a week in order to practice at a temporary facility.
Current Tulane sophomore Riley Hendrix wrote that the pool situation “has affected my entire college experience. I signed to be a D1 swimmer with the expectation that I would have access to top-notch training, coaches, and facilities. I lose sleep, study time, and sanity making our daily commute to pools that are nowhere near up to D1 standards.”
Other programs that are affected include: Swim 4 Success, Tulane Club Water Polo, and the Tulane Special Olympics. The Swim 4 Success program, which is “a Tulane student-run program that provides free swimming lessons to low-income New Orleans youth” was forced to stop lessons in June of 2020, according to a Facebook post on the program’s page. That decision was made during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Tulane University aquatics page says that the pool is closed and that “Campus Recreation is currently working with Tulane Capital Planning and Facilities on the renovation of the Reily Student Recreation Center Natatorium and Social Pool. The project is currently in the design phase with the architect, construction, and Campus Recreation team. Due to the extensive nature of this renovation, the pool will remain closed through the 2021-22 academic year.”
In 2018, Counsilman-Hunsaker was contracted to audit the condition of the Reily Natatorium. Their audit stated that the pool “finish, bulkhead condition, air quality and pool water treatment systems were all found to be in poor condition.”
Sources tell SwimSwam that at least one student-athlete has decommitted from the program because of ongoing issues with the pool.
This whole no pool situation sucked so much that I quit the team.
Hey SwimSwam, I think the swimming and diving community would love an update on this issue. Have you contacted the university?
80k a year to go there…and they can’t get the pool working. Unacceptable.
So assuming 9 practices a week 10 hours is a 30 minute shuttle ride to the pool and back?
This is an issue why?
God forbid these kids lose a few hours on Bourbon Street drinking underage.
So you downplay the issue of Tulane not living up to their end of their commitment to these students by accusing them of breaking the law?
I have to commend you because this is such a bad take that it’s legitimately impressive.
Bringing their campus pool up to D1 standards is a drop in the bucket financially for Tulane, yet they are shuttling them to sub par training facilities and then asking them to compete against teams like LSU. It’s embarrassing for a division 1 school to not have on campus training facilities and the administration should be called out.
My daughter has managed to attend classes, study, practice, lift and spend 10 hours a week in a shuttle at Tulane. In spite of the conditions, she is a top ranked breaststroker in the conference. For her and the rest of her teammates to put in the work they do to live through this insult is unforgivable. Add to that, there has been complete lack of transparency from the athletics department.
The pool has been a constant problem and no one ever listened to the athletes’ concerns. Now, they’re stuck with a multi-million dollar project to bring the pool up to code. The mismanagement of Tulane Athletics is astounding. Troy Dannen needs to be terminated ASAP.
Well, New Orleans is pretty f’d up if a college team can’t get some pool time without that kind of commute.
You are right, NOLA is not a great place for swimming. Hurricane Ida caused damages to the Loyola pool, where the team was training, and they had to move to UNO. The UNO pool itself is on its last legs, the university hasn’t put a penny into it since they cut their swimming programs 10 years ago. The air quality is terrible and they shock the pool by dumping buckets of chlorine while kids are swimming! The city has built quite a few splash pools with FEMA money after Katrina, all 4-6 lanes, 3-4 feet deep, each costs 6-7 mil to build and a ton to maintain. The swimming community petitioned the city to combine the resources to build a… Read more »
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu was slatedto be in charge of the 1 trillion infrastructure validation.or something .
Former mayor, and here is the response from New Orleans:
https://images.app.goo.gl/SRqNMy3V55UgiwKMA
Let’s home that Tulane doesn’t cut the program again.