The Notre Dame males’s swimming program has been suspended for no less than one tutorial yr after an investigation into potential playing. The lads’s swimming and diving applications are coming off their finest mixed end at NCAAs at school historical past as they had been tenth on the 2024 NCAA Championships.
Simply after U.S. Olympic Trials in June, the varsity introduced that the regulation agency, Ropes & Grey LLP to conduct an exterior evaluate after “potential points with the tradition” of the staff. Sources have advised SwimSwam that the investigation has been ongoing at the least since January and authorities had been allegedly monitoring exercise throughout US Olympic Trials.
The evaluate discovered that playing was an prevalence for a lot of the staff members that had been set to return for this upcoming season. Swimmers place “over/beneath” traces on swims at meets. One former member of the staff says they even took wagers on “what number of ladies would cry after their races.” Along with betting on swimming, among the athletes participated in betting on different sports activities such because the NCAA March Insanity tournaments.
The varsity issued a press release immediately from athletic director Pete Bevacqu. “The exterior evaluate confirmed and expanded on our preliminary issues a few deeply embedded staff tradition dismissive of Notre Dame’s requirements for student-athletes, together with our expectation that they deal with each other with dignity and respect,” stated Bevacqu.
“This impartial, exterior evaluate additionally documented quite a few violations of NCAA guidelines prohibiting playing on intercollegiate swimming and different athletic competitions regardless of clear and recurrent coaching offered to all our student-athletes by our Athletics Compliance workers about these guidelines. These findings are opposite to the College’s values and all that we stand for in Notre Dame Athletics. With a purpose to be certain that this conduct ends and to rebuild a tradition of dignity, respect, and exemplary conduct, we’ve got determined to droop the lads’s swimming program for at the least one tutorial yr.”
“Whereas particular person conduct assorted, the overwhelming cultural dynamic on the staff necessitates a full suspension. We profoundly remorse that the small variety of staff members who didn’t take part within the conduct, and those that had been planning on becoming a member of the staff this fall, will even undergo the results of this determination”
“The teaching workers participated in and totally cooperated with all facets of the exterior evaluate. The evaluate discovered that the workers was not conscious of playing or the scope and extent of different troubling behaviors as a result of staff members successfully hid such behaviors from the coaches and workers by way of concerted efforts. In response to the evaluate, when the workers grew to become conscious of sure remoted incidents of unacceptable conduct, they handled them severely and professionally. We respect the continued service of the workers to our ladies’s swimming and diving applications and our males’s diving program throughout these tough occasions.”
This system simply completed its 2nd season beneath head coach Chris Lindauer. The lads’s staff had a historic 18th place end at NCAAs in Lindauer’s first season earlier than surpassing that end this previous March as they had been tenth. The staff additionally was 2nd on the 2024 ACC Championships, additionally a program-high end.
130 out of the 132 factors from the staff at 2024 NCAAs got here from swimming. Daniel Knapp was the one diver to attain, with two factors coming from a fifteenth place end within the 1 meter occasion.
Along with success on the NCAA stage, the staff additionally despatched rising senior Chris Guiliano to signify the US on the 2024 Paris Olympics. Guiliano earned one gold and one silver as a member of the US males’s freestyle relays. In response to Sports activities Illustrated, Guiliano isn’t regarded as one of many swimmers wagering on his personal staff. Lindauer was named an assistant coach for the US in Paris as effectively.
In response to NCAA rule 10.3, sports-wagering is prohibited for student-athletes. “The next people shall not knowingly take part in sports activities wagering actions or present data to people concerned in or related to any sort of sports activities wagering actions regarding intercollegiate, newbie or skilled athletics competitors. (a) Employees members of an establishment’s athletics division; (b) Nonathletics division workers members who’ve obligations inside or over the athletics division (e.g., chancellor or president, school athletics consultant, particular person to whom athletics experiences); (c) Employees members of a convention workplace; and (d) Pupil-athletes.”
