Guest post: What does the Transfer Portal look like...in swimming?

Good morning, and thanks for your continued support of Extra Points.

One of my favorite things about running Extra Points has been building relationships with Sports Management and Sports Journalism programs throughout the country. I regularly speak to those classes, answer questions, and sometimes, even get student work that I can publish.

Today is one of those days. Today’s story comes from Olivia Bontempo. Olivia is studying sports journalism and finance at the University of Georgia. A few weeks ago, she pitched me an interesting question….how does the transfer portal work in sports outside of football and basketball? What about say, swimming?

Olivia can be found on Twitter at @oliviambontempo. Her story is below:

The NCAA and collegiate swim & dive programs juggle COVID-19 and extra eligibility as they try to mitigate the number of athletes entering into the transfer portal. 

In the wake of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, former University of Iowa swimmer Millie Sansome saw her life in the pool take a sudden hit. When the Iowa athletic department announced that they would be cutting the women’s swimming and diving program, it gave Sansome no choice but to enter into the transfer portal. 

“We were all in this room, chairs sort of six feet apart, and they were like 'yeah we're cutting the team, we're really sorry.’ And then I was thrown into the transfer portal, which I wasn’t expecting to do,” said Sansome. “It sort of felt like I had been knocked off my feet a little bit.”

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