University of Virginia Library

Swimmers Await New Facilities

By Jim Wilson
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

After over forty years of service,
broken pumps, chlorine overloads,
and other mechanical difficulties,
along with the normal poor
swimming conditions, Memorial
Gym's infamous swimming pool
will be replaced next winter by the
pool that is now being built next to
University Hall.

Actually the name "pool" is
inappropriate. The new facility will
be so large, comprehensive in its
services, and modern in its
technological innovations that it
deserves the title of a natatorium.
That is what it is; the University
Hall Natatorium. It will be one of
the best facilities in the East, if not
in the Nation.

When the concrete stops pouring
the present hole will be filled with
two pools. One will be eight lanes
wide and 25 yards long with a
practically flat bottom (five to six
feet deep sloping away from the
starting end). The other will be 13
feet deep at the bottom just a few
feet away from the big pool.

When all of the rest of the
hundreds of workmen required to
build the pool are done, there will
be a one and one-half million dollar
facility that has been thought out
down to the last detail. Among
these well-thought out innovations
that will be greatly appreciated by
the swimmers will be two
underwater observation windows to
give the coach a better view to
evaluate his swimmers' strokes and
turns.

The huge gutters on all sides
with the overflow passage into the
diving well will greatly reduce
whatever turbulence in the water
that the special wide lane lines and
bottom design somehow might
miss.

Keeping in style with the general
overall scope of the facility are the
seven foot wide lanes and seating
for approximately 1,000 spectators.
The entire pool area will be covered
with tile; pool, deck, and portions
of the stands.

Just to be able to compare the
new pools to the present water hole
and further appreciate the benefits
of the natatorium (if you have
dared to go to a meet at Memorial
gym) think about the pool area.
Think about the stifling heat. Think
about four skinny lanes, the one
diving board with the very shallow
bottom. Think about the officials
who ran the meet and were for the
most part younger than the
contestants. Think about the
atmosphere and lastly think about
the quality of the meet you saw.

This will all be different at the
new pool. The pool deck will be
wide, there will be plenty of light
from the windows at the end of the
building and the lights of the pool
area. The heat that the swimmers
have to have so that they do not
freeze between events will come
from inside the deck and deck seats
from special ducts and wires. The
stands will have a separate heating
system. The lanes will be
luxuriously wide.

What may be more important,
however, than these extras will be
the quality of the meets themselves.
Coach Good has already secured
the services of State swimming
officials to run the meets as well as
having recruited several good new
swimmers to swim for Virginia next
year.

A few feet from one end of the
new pool will be a completely new
innovation for Virginia swimming:
a diving well. This well will also be
the required size for the water polo
matches of the future. As of the
moment Virginia does not even
have a diving coach, but expects to
have at least an assistant swimming
coach who knows a lot about diving
by next season if not a full time
diving coach.