UVA Athletics confirmed reporting by SwimSwam from earlier this month about the decision to cut its diving program.
You could tell they didn’t want to.
And not just because the news got dropped right before the school announced that it will not retain Ron Sanchez as the men’s basketball coach.
Reminds me of when UVA Athletics announced that Tony Bennett had signed a contract extension last summer on a day that most of us scribes who cover Virginia sports were in Omaha at the College World Series.
We all know now how that contract extension worked out.
Anyway, so, no more diving.
Here’s the wordy, say-nothing statement from UVA Athletics on that:
“The changing landscape of college athletics, which includes the pending House Settlement, has required the University of Virginia swimming and diving program to make strategic and difficult decisions regarding its roster and staff. The UVA swimming and diving program will continue to assess how to strategically invest resources to compete for NCAA championships which may include the divestment of certain areas, including diving at this time. We will continue to remain nimble as an athletics department to ensure we are positioning ourselves to remain competitive nationally. Head coach Todd DeSorbo has done an incredible job leading this program to national prominence and will have no comments regarding these decisions.”
SwimSwam, back on March 1, broke the news about what it termed a “restructuring” of the swimming and diving program.
Which means: we’ve had it called “restructuring” and “divestment.”
Just say it already!
The SwimSwam report noted that UVA’s former head diving coach, Josh Arndt, left the program early in the 2024-2025 season to take over as the head diving coach at Notre Dame, and that he had been replaced, on an interim basis, by former Virginia Tech diver Jack Gigliotti, who according to SwimSwam has a full-time job outside of the sport and was not expected to return next season.
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Chris Graham
