On the south end of UND's campus, at the corner of Demers Avenue and 42nd Street South, Ray Richards Golf Course sits unused and empty. UND's administration closed the course this year as the school said it needed to narrow its focus during a budget crunch.
Now, swimming enthusiasts in Grand Forks hope to avoid a similar fate.
UND hasn't decided what's to become of Hyslop Pool after the university cut the men's and women's swimming and diving programs this spring.
"We are in the very initial stages where we're identifying what data and information we need to have in hand to inform a conversation where we bring stakeholders to the table to think about what the future might look like," said Alice Brekke, UND's Vice President for Finance and Operations. "We're trying to pull together operating costs and deferred maintenance so we have a full picture. When we bring in stakeholders, we want to make the most productive use of their time and focus the conversation on reality."
Brekke said the university is targeting a mid-June timeframe for those talks.
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"Obviously, there's lots of other usage outside of intercollegiate athletics," Brekke said. "The question is how do the finances come together in a scenario where that usage might continue."
Important facility
Swimming supporters say Hyslop is a critical facility for the sport because of its size and seating. Hyslop has eight lanes of 50 meters, whereas the next best pool size is at Grand Forks Central High School, where the pool has six 25-meter lanes.
Grand Forks Red River's high school pool is used for some practices but isn't capable of hosting a competition. The pools at the YMCA and Choice Health and Fitness also aren't designed for meets.
The community's three outdoor pool facilities (Elks, Riverside and East Grand Forks) weren't built to proper size to host a meet. East Grand Forks doesn't have an indoor pool.
Hyslop has the viewing capacity of 750, with room for 750 athletes on the pool deck. No other facility in the region comes close to possessing that space.
"If we don't have Hyslop for competition at the club level, we're going to lose a lot from the competition side and it would hurt the health of our program as far as being able to make income to offset bills through hosting meets," Grand Forks club and high school swim coach Bryan Walls said.
Brian Strom, a former assistant coach with the UND swimming program, currently manages the Hyslop pool. Strom said the pool has good water quality after the university invested nearly $500,000 in a new filtration system a few years ago.
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Grand Forks swimming leaders say they don't see a significant financial cost for repairs at Hyslop in the near future. They say UND's swim programs would have liked a few updates to certain areas like locker rooms and new tiling on the pool deck, but the pure functionality of the facility remains high.
Strom said the pool still sees plenty of traffic, even minus the UND swim teams.
"The UND swim team was one tenant of many," Strom said.
UND's pool has been used for athletic strength and conditioning, athletic therapy, ROTC, sports medicine and other academic courses, as well as recreational use by students and faculty.
The pool has also been used by outside organizations for community training like SCUBA, lifeguards and emergency personnel.
Strom is also the head of Swim North Dakota, a youth swim lesson program that averages about 125 kids during a two-week cycle. Strom said Hyslop pool sees usage between 5:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily.
An introduction to UND
Mark Schill is the president of the Red River Valley Wahoos, a local USA Swimming club team. He said there are three elements to the future use of Hyslop.
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He said the future usage can be broken down between university usage, club and high school competition and a community asset. Those three elements, Schill said, hold enough significance to warrant future use of the pool.
UND's Wellness Center, which opened in 2006, wasn't built with a pool. Other similar universities in the area have pool facilities, even those without university athletic programs. North Dakota State, Montana, Montana State, South Dakota and South Dakota State all have on-campus pools.
Walls, whose Wahoos club program features between 80 and 100 swimmers yearly, argues the university sees a free marketing tool through large meets held at Hyslop.
Walls said his club hosts two meets in the winter and two in the summer, as well as the state meet that comes to Grand Forks twice in three-year spans.
Walls estimates the larger meets see 600 athletes between the ages of 5 and 18 and their families coming to Grand Forks.
"For a lot of kids, that is their first introduction to the university," Walls said.
The Grand Forks swimming leaders say they'd like to partner with the university moving forward.
"There's an opportunity for cash-flow," Schill said. "There's plenty of opportunity to make the case to the university that this is an important facility for the region and community. Our organization, as a local nonprofit, is willing to step up to do what we need to do."
