After more than four months of campaigning and raising $9 million, the Cal Poly Swimming and Diving program’s push for reinstatement has officially ended, according to members of the team.
In an email from Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong on June 16, he informed the program there would be no further extensions to the due date or changes in their fundraising goal, effectively ending the team’s last hopes of coming back to swim in the fall.
Armstrong stated he “appreciates the effort of many to raise the permanent funds needed,” but the money raised was “well short of the goal.”
The program was unable to hit their $15 million fundraising target – lowered from the initial $25 million mark – by the June 15 deadline set by Cal Poly Athletics.
The Swim and Dive team was initially discontinued in an unexpected announcement on March 7, less than a month after they had wrapped up a historically strong season. At first, “fundraising was not a viable solution,” according to an FAQ released by Athletics shortly after the cut.
BACKGROUND: Cal Poly Swim and Dive athletes battle for reinstatement after team cut
By the middle of March, Armstrong changed his mind – and gave the program a goal to fundraise for.
The first bar was set at $25 million, with a $10 million checkpoint set for April 15. By mid April, the program had raised around $7.5 million, which is when Armstrong then lowered the goal to $20 million and extended the deadline until June 4.
By the middle of May, Armstrong extended the deadline to June 15 when it was announced that CSU budget cuts would be reduced from 8% to 3%, according to the Instagram post dedicated to saving the team on ‘savecpswimdive.’
Then, at the end of May, Armstrong lowered the goal once more, this time down to $15 million.
The team launches follow-up reinstatement efforts
Despite the announcement on Monday, the team’s fight to get back in the pool next season isn’t over.
They are exploring other options for reinstatement, and have already launched a new GoFundMe to cover legal expenses, public awareness and any other expenses for reinstatement.
The new GoFundMe, titled “The Final Push,” was announced on June 18 and they have already raised over $3,000 in less than a day. Cal Poly alumni and Olympic swimmer Taylor Spivey donated $1,000 to the effort.
The money from the original GoFundMe, which is just over $95,000 as of June 18, has been refunded to all donors.
Most of the money raised outside of the GoFundMe was through pledges and bequests, as parents and alumni came together and were willing to pledge that money if the mark of $15 million was hit.
A sum of money that was also dedicated for the swim and dive program is sitting in the Dick Anderson Swimming Scholarship Endowment, which is who the Anderson Aquatic Center is named after.
According to Cal Poly swim and dive alumni Tom Johnson, there is just under $435,000 in the endowment as of February 28, 2025.
Cal Poly spokesperson Matt Lazier declined to comment on what will happen to the money inside the fund, referring to Armstrong’s recent statement released Monday as the “extent of information” they have.
Glenn Perry – who graduated from Cal Poly in 1985 and was inducted into the Cal Poly Athletics Hall of Fame for swimming in 2013 – has been heavily involved in the entire campaigning process.
“We had come together to raise close to $9 million and [Armstrong] basically just rejected that amount,” Perry stated. “In a world where you need money, you’re going to push that amount of money away?”
He explained that he was “thoroughly devastated” by Armstrong’s decision not to reinstate the program.
Amidst the decision, the conclusion of swim and dive’s fundraising efforts comes just one week after Cal Poly Athletic Director Don Oberhelman announced his retirement.
READ MORE: Cal Poly Director of Athletics Don Oberhelman announces retirement
Given the timing, Perry wondered what might have led to Oberhelman’s choice to retire from the role.
“Why is he retiring at 54-years old when he’s making a six-figure salary?” Perry said “What is the real reason for his retirement? It just doesn’t make sense.”
According to the Cal Poly state compensation report, Oberhelman was making upwards of $250,000 yearly. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, his earnings were just over $295,000.
No reason for his retirement was given in the schoolwide email released on June 9.
Alumni and supporters react to the official cut
Perry also shared one of the biggest concerns from the community was the lack of transparency from the athletic department surrounding the situation.
“President Armstrong is responsible for this and it did not have to happen,” Perry said. “There’s something going on behind the scenes that they’re not telling the alumni or even the student-athletes.”
Johnson, who swam at Cal Poly from 1987 to 1990, says he doesn’t think the amount of money the program was asked to raise is unrealistic, but it’s the timeline that is too short.
Both Perry and Johnson believe that with more time, the swim community could have come together to raise the necessary funds. Johnson, however, did give Armstrong credit for lowering the amount of money needed.
“With the money we raised, it should be a dream come true for an organization that’s trying to save a program,” Johnson said. “But the fact is that them turning us down shows they had no interest in saving the program.”
Why wasn’t the $9 million accepted?
In the email sent out Monday, Armstrong stated $15 million was the “absolute minimum” needed to support the program.
He also continued to cite the House v. NCAA settlement and the CSU state budget cuts as the reason for not being able to accept the $9 million.
The multi-billion dollar House v. NCAA legal settlement was approved on June 6, meaning NCAA Division I athletes who weren’t allowed to sign name, image and likeness (NIL) deals will receive $2.8 billion in damages over the next ten years.
The settlement ends three separate federal antitrust lawsuits, each claiming the NCAA was withholding pay from its athletes.
According to Dan Murphy of ESPN, schools will pay athletes who competed at any time from 2016 onward, and now, each school can also directly share revenue with their athletes as well. The annual cap schools can pay their athletes is expected to start around $20.5 million per school in 2025-26.
Cal Poly can opt-in to the settlement, meaning they would need to begin paying a share of the damages, but will also be freed to offer revenue sharing with players and other new forms of scholarships.
As for the CSU budget cut, it was revised to $143.8 million or 3% from the initial $375 million figure in May, but still looms as another large cost putting pressure on the administration.
Oberhelman’s first public comments on the program being cut came on April 21, in a video released on Cal Poly Athletics YouTube.
“It’s painful,” he said in the interview. “It causes anger and a lot of misdirected rage and things like that. It’s an awful situation to go through, but we didn’t go into it lightly.”
Oberhelman, who worked at Cal Poly for 14 years, was the one who initially broke the news of the program discontinuation to the team back in March.
He will continue to serve as the Athletic Director until the end of the summer or when a new director is appointed, according to a schoolwide email on June 18 from Armstrong.
The majority of Cal Poly swimmers will return to San Luis Obispo in the fall, still under scholarship but no longer student-athletes.