BATON ROUGE, La. - A new era of men's swimming and diving will begin
Monday at 5 p.m as head coach
Randy Horner will lead his University of
New Orleans program against Stanford at the Crawfish Aquatic Center.
In what is the first dual meet on the national calendar this year, the Privateer men, who have not competed since 1992 will face a tall task in competing against a Cardinal squad that finished the 2007-08 campaign as the third best team in Division I.
This dual holds even further significance as the first collegiate sporting event in Baton Rouge since Hurricane Gustav put major collegiate athletics on hold.
The effects of the hurricane also impacted the UNO swimming and diving program, as Horner and his squad relocated to Cleveland, Miss. on the campus of Delta State for the a week due to the evacuation of New Orleans.
Horner, who billed the excursion to Mississippi as a "team bonding trip" has led his squad through intense training the last week to coupled with non-swimming activities including team barbecues, volleyball and dodgeball.
“I look at the Stanford dual as a great opportunity to get our kids in the water early against one of the best teams in the country and measure what we have,” said Horner when the Privateer swimming and diving schedule was announced last month.
The Privateers, who have only been in the pool for two weeks prior to Monday's dual, will use the competition as a chance to evaluate the new athletes in a meet situation.
Stanford will be competing against UNO to wrap up a training trip to Baton Rouge, where they have dry-land training sessions with Jan and Steve Ripple, who are involved with the Crawfish Aquatic team.
The Cardinal swimming program hauled in 25 medals at the recently completed Beijing Olympic Games, some of which came from current Stanford athletes.
Following the dual, the men will be joined by the women in their next competition, a Blue and Silver intersquad meet scheduled for Oct. 5.
