Masters Swimming Helps Create College Club Swimming Organization

Sarasota, Fla., January 23, 2018—U.S. Masters Swimming, the national governing body for adult swimming, is supporting collegiate swimming at the club level.

Swimming at the college club level has grown over the past decade. Despite this growth, it hasn’t been a connected network and most clubs have been operating independently of one other. It’s been difficult to organize and sustain a nationwide effort over time as student administrators and organizers graduate.

USMS is helping to unify this community by supporting the creation of a new national governing body. The new organization, College Club Swimming, will be electing its second Advisory Board, made up primarily of college club officers, this spring.

USMS CEO Dawson Hughes sees a natural fit between the two organizations. “USMS is excited to help unify and strengthen CCS. We saw an opportunity to help grow the sport of swimming at the college level and promote the health and fitness benefits of swimming as a lifelong endeavor. The parallels between College Club Swimming and Masters Swimming make this a great partnership. We look forward to its continued growth,” Hughes says.

CCS Advisory Board member Jayden Howell from Utah State agrees. “Many college club programs are excited about partnering with USMS—an organization that understands our love of swimming for fun, health, fitness, and competition. Masters swimmers are much like us, and it’s great to know that USMS is there for us to continue our sport long after college is over,” Howell says.

The organization kicked off its first official season in August 2017 and will be hosting its first National Championship in April 2018. USMS is providing infrastructure for club and swimmer registration, a club lookup tool to help clubs and swimmers connect, a calendar of events, and an individual swimmer results database. To date, there are more than 100 clubs and 3,000 swimmers registered in CCS.

More information is available at collegeclubswimming.com.