Big Green swimming hits eBay

Last night at the Dartmouth women's basketball game, a group of students with identical T-shirts sat in a group in Leede Arena.

The Big Green beat Hartford, 86-72, but the cluster in the stands received much of the applause on the night.

Each shirt read: "I am a Dartmouth budget cut."

Since the Dartmouth Athletic Department decided to cut its men's and women's swimming and diving teams on Nov. 25 in an effort to eliminate $260,000 from the budget, the Big Green swimmers have petitioned their cause through various creative initiatives.

But none of these attempts has been quite as eccentric as the idea to "auction" the team on eBay for $211,000 in order to subsidize next year's program.

Ironically, the decision to sell the program was not even suggested by one of its 63 members, but rather by sophomore swimmer Jenny Kunkel's boyfriend Jon Lenihan.

"I mentioned something to Jenny over break," Lenihan, a student at Xavier University said. "I just said, 'We'll just put it on eBay, and I don't think she believed me. It just kind of snowballed from there you might say."

As of last night, the team had received six bids, including a high bid of $212,099.99 -- the swim team costs the Dartmouth Athletic Department $212,000 each year.

Nobody on the team is quite sure what will result when the auction ends on Dec. 7 at 4:52 p.m.They don't even know if the scheme is legal.

"Hopefully by the end of the week we'll have a better idea of what we'll do," Kunkel said.

Last year, a group of Daily Pennsylvanian staff members attempted a similar task, when they petitioned people from across the country to "Buy the Expos" and save the major league team from contraction.

They discovered that they could not collect money because the plan infringed on federal antitrust laws.

But as the swimmers wait until Dec. 7, the team's plight has gained considerable media attention.

In addition to the appearance on eBay, parents of Dartmouth swimmers have established a Web site which received over 3,000 hits on its first day.

The Dartmouth administration claims that it had been deliberating for a long time over the decision to cut a team and if so, which team.

"Earlier in the season we didn't know the extent of the budget cut," Dartmouth Deputy Athletic Director Bob Ceplikis said. "As soon as we did know, we wanted to let prospective students have as much notice as possible. We felt it was important to announce the decision as soon as possible."

The 63 swimmers received an e-mail at 8:08 a.m. telling them to be at a meeting at 9:00 a.m. Only 10 swimmers showed up at the meeting with the Dartmouth administration -- the men's swim team had a morning swim practice at the same time.

"The whole entire student body feels really cheated because we feel that it was not well thought out but implemented," junior swimmer Priscilla Zee said. "It was orchestrated."

Zee's brother James Michael, a four-time Minnesota state swimming champion, had considered attending Dartmouth but instead, wrote a letter to the admissions office explaining his disgust with the decision.

Though junior swimmer Grant Chang would undoubtedly stray from graduating in four years if he transferred, he too does not want to be a part of the school.

"I'm pretty sure that I won't donate a penny to the school if I do graduate from here," Chang said. "I don't know if I'll ever come back."

The swimmers have each petitioned their club teams -- and everyone they know -- to help the cause.

But whether monetary compensation -- through eBay or otherwise -- will be enough to save Big Green swimming now rests in the hands of the Dartmouth administration.

"I think that with the response that we're getting, they're going to be hard pressed to ignore it," sophomore swimmer Laura Nelson said. "At the moment I have to be optimistic that something's going to happen soon."

Come Dec. 7, Dartmouth may be forced into action.

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