The Charlatan - Mar 17, 2005


        War of words emerges between swim team, athletics
        Team booked in smoking hotel room at OUAs
        by Chris Messina

          This season was a rough one for the Carleton Ravens swim team and 
        according to some on the team, Carleton athletics added to the hardship.
        The team dealt with a good deal of adversity including their bus 
        breaking down twice on one road-trip, staying in the smoking section of 
        a hotel during the provincial championship and not having their team 
        website updated regularly by athletics. 

        The season started well for Carleton as in November as the men’s team 
        won the Eynon divisional championship. This positive information was not 
        posted on the team website maintained by Carleton athletics. 
        The team created and maintains their own website because athletics does 
        not regularly update information to it, say several team members.

        “Athletics pays no attention to our page and are quite slow at updating 
        it. There is a pure focus on basketball. Other sports get nothing from 
        athletics either. [Men’s basketball has] a new facility built for them 
        and we are just thrown to the wayside. We went 7-1 before the 
        divisionals and the website had a story about the basketball team having 
        trading cards,” says men’s team assistant captain Brandon VanDyk.

        VanDyk’s teammate Bob Farinas says it is difficult for the team to 
        recruit players because the website is unreliable. 
        “We just hope that people go to a search engine and our web page pops up 
        first.”

        Carleton athletics director Drew Love says he was unaware this 
        information had not been posted to the site, but promised that the male 
        swimmers victory would be uploaded to the Carleton site soon. 
        “I have no idea why that information is not posted. I do believe that 
        information would aid in recruiting,” says Love. 

        Last month, at the OUA championship at Brock University in St. 
        Catharine’s Ont., the team was booked in the smoking section of their 
        hotel. Team members say the mishap disturbed their mental preparation 
        for the competition but did not affect the team’s overall performance. 
        “The hotel was a little smoky, it was annoying, but I don’t think it 
        affected us,” says Carleton men’s team coach John Waring. 
        “Mentally it affected us, you train the whole year and this is the last 
        thing you expect to happen to you,” says Carleton swimmer 
        Mike Penny. “Whoever booked the rooms obviously didn’t do their job 
        correctly.”
        Penny says there is a double standard at Carleton in regard to treatment 
        of teams.
        “Would that ever happen to the basketball team? And if it did, you would 
        hear about it,” says Penny. 

        Carleton’s varsity administrator Erin Curry, who is responsible for 
        making travel plans for the teams, says the athletics department is not 
        to blame. 
        “All the hotels I book one year in advance and are booked in the non 
        smoking section. It was the hotel’s mistake not mine,” says Curry. 
        The team stayed in the Quality Hotel in St. Catharine’s, Ont. Hotel 
        records show that Carleton booked the swimmers’ rooms July 3, 2004. 
        A spokesperson for the hotel says the contract did not guarantee that 
        the swimmers would be given non-smoking rooms.