It was the kind of phone call no athlete ever wants to get. In late 2024, the news broke that Cal Poly San Luis Obispo was officially pulling the plug on its men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs. Honestly, it sent a shockwave through the Big West Conference. You’ve got a program with decades of history, a dedicated alumni base, and kids who committed their entire collegiate careers to the Mustangs, only to have the rug pulled out from under them in a single afternoon.
The Cal Poly swimming program elimination wasn't just a local headline; it was a symptom of a much larger, uglier trend in NCAA Division I athletics.
The Cold Reality of the Cut
Why did this happen? If you ask the administration, they’ll point to the "changing landscape" of college sports. That’s code for money. Specifically, the House v. NCAA settlement and the looming requirement for schools to share revenue with athletes. Cal Poly’s athletic director, Don Oberhelman, basically laid it out flat: the school couldn't afford to keep the doors open for every sport while trying to stay competitive in the high-stakes world of modern college football and basketball.
It’s brutal.
The decision affected roughly 60 student-athletes. Think about that for a second. Sixty people who chose San Luis Obispo because of the blend of rigorous engineering or agriculture programs and the chance to swim at the D1 level. Suddenly, they were told they had until the end of the 2024-2025 season to figure out their lives. Some decided to stay and finish their degrees without the sport they love. Others hit the transfer portal immediately, hoping to find a lane elsewhere before the roster spots in the Big West and beyond dried up.
The Financial "Why" Behind the Scenes
The math is honestly depressing. While swimming and diving don't require a stadium or a massive coaching staff of forty people, the overhead is still significant. Maintaining an Olympic-sized pool like the Anderson Aquatic Center isn't cheap. You have chemicals, heating, and constant maintenance. Then you have the scholarships.
When the NCAA started moving toward a model where schools might have to pay athletes directly—upwards of $20 million a year for some Power Five schools—even Mid-Major programs like Cal Poly started sweating. They looked at their books and saw a program that didn't generate "revenue" in the traditional sense. No one is selling out a swim meet at 10:00 AM on a Tuesday. Without ticket sales or massive TV contracts, swimming became a line item that was easy to erase.
It’s a trend we’ve seen at other schools, too. Remember when Iowa tried to cut swimming? Or when Fresno State dropped their men’s program years ago? It’s the same story, just a different zip code.
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The Human Impact: More Than Just Fast Times
We often talk about these things in terms of budgets and "roster spots," but we forget about the actual humans. I talked to some folks close to the program, and the vibe was just... heavy. Imagine being a sophomore. You finally got your technique down, you're starting to hit personal bests, and then the administration tells you the program is dead.
It’s not just the athletes, either. The coaching staff—led by Phil Yoshida, who has been a staple in the Central Coast swimming community for years—found themselves looking for work in an increasingly crowded market. Coaches aren't just whistle-blowers; they are mentors. For many of these swimmers, the team was their entire social and support structure at Cal Poly.
The Title IX Factor
Whenever a school cuts a sport, Title IX comes up. It’s the federal law that ensures gender equity in education and athletics. At Cal Poly, they chose to cut both the men’s and women’s programs. This is a strategic move often used by athletic departments to maintain the "proportionality" required by law. If you cut a men's team, you often have to cut a women's team to keep the numbers balanced.
It feels fair on paper, but in reality, it just means twice as many kids lose their opportunity.
The Cal Poly swimming program elimination actually highlights a loophole in how schools manage their gender equity requirements. Instead of adding more opportunities for women—the original intent of the law—many schools find it "more efficient" to simply delete opportunities for everyone. It’s a race to the bottom that leaves the Olympic sports (swimming, track, gymnastics) as the primary victims.
Could It Have Been Saved?
Alumni groups and the "Save Cal Poly Swim & Dive" movement didn't go down without a fight. They raised money. They wrote letters to the President’s office. They showed up at meetings.
Usually, when a program is on the chopping block, there’s a "save" figure—a dollar amount that, if raised, would keep the lights on. But in this case, the administration seemed pretty set in their ways. They weren't just looking for a one-year bridge; they were looking at the next ten years of a collapsing NCAA model. They didn't want a band-aid; they wanted a restructure.
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The Misconception About "Non-Revenue" Sports
People love to call swimming a "non-revenue" sport. It’s a term that gets thrown around by ADs and sports talk radio hosts like it’s a dirty word. But here’s what they miss: these athletes often pay a higher percentage of their tuition than the football players.
At a school like Cal Poly, many swimmers are on partial scholarships or are "walk-ons." They are paying full out-of-state or in-state tuition. When you cut 60 students who are high achievers with high GPAs, you aren't just losing athletes; you’re losing 60 tuition-paying students who likely would have been among your most successful alumni.
The short-term savings on a coaching salary and pool chemicals often ignore the long-term loss of alumni donations and tuition revenue. It’s short-sighted, honestly.
What the Future Holds for Cal Poly Athletics
With swimming gone, what’s next? The school is doubling down on its "core" sports. They want to be a powerhouse in the Big West for basketball and baseball. They want the football program to actually compete in the Big Sky.
But at what cost?
The identity of Cal Poly has always been "Learn by Doing." For a swimmer, "doing" means 5:00 AM sets in the cold San Luis Obispo morning air. It means balancing a 15-unit engineering load with 20 hours of training a week. It’s the epitome of the school’s motto. Without that program, a piece of the school’s gritty, blue-collar academic and athletic identity is just... gone.
The Transfer Portal Scramble
For the athletes currently in the water, the situation is a mess. The transfer portal is already overcrowded. You have kids from every school in the country trying to move around for NIL money or better coaching. Now, you have 60 Cal Poly swimmers entering a market that doesn't have 60 open spots.
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Many will have to choose:
- Transfer to a school they don't like just to keep swimming.
- Stay at Cal Poly and join a "club" team, which is basically glorified lap swimming compared to D1 training.
- Retire from the sport entirely at age 19 or 20.
It’s a heartbreaking choice for someone who has spent 15 years of their life in a pool.
Lessons from the Cal Poly Swimming Program Elimination
If you're a fan of Olympic sports, this should be a wake-up call. The model is broken. We are moving toward a world where only the top 40 or 50 schools in the country will have "full" athletic departments, and everyone else will be forced to cut down to the bare minimum required by the NCAA (usually 14 to 16 sports).
Cal Poly isn't the first, and they certainly won't be the last.
We’re seeing a shift where "amateur" sports are being sacrificed at the altar of "professionalized" college football. It’s not a secret anymore. It’s the reality of 2025 and 2026. If a sport doesn't have a TV deal, its existence is perpetually at risk.
Actionable Next Steps for Affected Families and Fans
If you’re an athlete or a parent navigating this mess, or just a fan who hates to see this happen, here is how you actually handle it:
- Evaluate the Degree First: If you’re a Cal Poly swimmer, remember that your degree from SLO is worth a ton. Before you jump into the portal to swim at a random school in the Midwest, ask yourself if the swimming is worth more than the long-term earning potential of a Cal Poly diploma.
- Support the Remaining Olympic Sports: If you want to prevent this from happening to the track team or the wrestling team, show up. Buy tickets. Donate specifically to those "sport-specific" funds rather than the general athletic pot.
- Pressure the Big West: Conferences have a say in this. If the Big West mandates a certain number of swimming programs to keep the sport viable for championship status, schools have more pressure to keep them. Contact the conference office and let them know that a "basketball-only" focus is killing the student-athlete experience.
- Look Into Club Options: The Cal Poly Club Swim Team is actually quite robust. While it's not the same as D1, it allows athletes to stay in the water and keep that community alive without the stress of an administration that doesn't want them.
The Cal Poly swimming program elimination is a tragedy for the local sports scene, but it’s also a blueprint for what's coming to other mid-majors. It’s messy, it’s financial, and it’s deeply personal. The Mustangs deserved better, but the pool is officially closing, and the ripple effects will be felt for years.