Swim Poll of the Week: 74% Believe Arizona State Made Right Decision to Redshirt Entire Swim Team

This is the Swim Poll of the Week for Wednesday August 5, 2020, sponsored by Strechcordz Swim Training Products. In our last poll, we wanted to know: What do you make of Arizona State decision to redshirt its entire swim team?

Last week, Arizona State became the first power five college swimming and diving program to make a decision about the upcoming college season — and Bob Bowman made a stunning announcement that the entire team will take a redshirt this season and focus on 2021-22.

Bowman consulted with the team and the athletes’ parents before making the decision.

According to the school, all involved parties agree this plan will allow for maximum flexibility and confidence for the student-athletes and their families in regards to their location and practice situation due to COVID-19. All members of the Sun Devil swimming & diving programs will redshirt and only train in 2020-21, with the expectation the entire roster will return in 2021-22.

“In March, (Vice President for University Athletics) Ray Anderson challenged all Sun Devil head coaches to find ways to make our programs stronger after the COVID-19 crisis,” Bowman said. “This decision clearly accomplishes that goal. It promotes the health and safety of our student-athletes, enhances their educational opportunities and allows time to rebuild and refocus on performing at the highest levels of NCAA competition.”

This plan, which can be accomplished within existing scholarship limits, allows the student-athletes to enroll in courses as full-time students across all learning platforms and will allow most to pursue graduate degrees in a five-year window.

“Many of our student-athletes will now have the opportunity to pursue a graduate degree during their additional year on campus,” said Bowman, who has coached nine Pac-12 individual champions in his five years at Arizona State. “This is a tremendous benefit which we are excited to offer to a tremendous team which has great academic goals.”

We asked for the swim poll and it looks like our audience sided with Arizona State’s decision…

Here are the answers regarding Arizona State’s decision to redshirt its entire team:

Right Move – 74%

Wrong Move – 10%

Unsure – 16%

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