By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
Saint Leo University in Saint Leo, Florida has announced that it will bring back its varsity men’s and women’s swimming teams in coming years. The teams will begin competition as club teams in the 2027-28 academic year before transitioning to NCAA Division II competition for the 2028-2029 season.
The school previously cut the swimming program in 2023 along with its men’s and women’s track teams and men’s and women’s cross country teams.
Those other programs were previously brought back, which included the construction of a new outdoor track.
Megan O’Reilly, who is the school’s current Manager of Aquatics and Fitness, will be the head coach at both teams. She swam collegiately for the Catholic University of America and graduated from the University of South Florida in May of 2022 with a degree in psychology, and then a second degree from USF in 2024 in behavioral healthcare.
Those interested in joining either program moving forward can reach out to Coach O’Reilly by email at megan.oreilly@saintleo.edu.
She is currently working on her MBA at Saint Leo.
During her time at USF, O’Reilly was involved in a number of sports clubs and held several leadership positions. That includes servingas President of the Swimming Club, Risk Manager and Secretary of the Equestrian Club, and the USF Sports Club Council Secretary.
“Saint Leo University is always evaluating the quality and scope of its athletic offerings,” said Marcal Lazenby, Saint Leo’s Vice President of Student Life and Athletics. “The return of men’s and women’s swimming provides another opportunity for talented student-athletes to pursue their academic and athletic goals at Saint Leo while bringing back two programs with proud histories within our university community.”
This brings back two nationally-competitive Division II programs. The men’s team was represented at the NCAA Championships for 12 straight seasons from 2012-2023, and in 2019 Henrik Dahrendorff won the NCAA D2 title in the 200 breaststroke.
The women’s team was on a streak of 10 straight NCAA Championship appearances (2014 through 2023) when they were cut.
Saint Leo University, located about 35 miles north of Tampa, opened a new 59,000-square-foot Wellness Center in 2022 that includes a resort-style pool with two lap lanes. The team will primarily train out of the Marion Bowman Aquatics Center, which has a six-lane, 25-yard outdoor pool.
The school was established in 1889 and is a Benedictine Catholic University with an undergraduate enrollment of just over 7,500. Like many smaller private universities, the school has seen an enrollment decline over the last decade – from a peak of about 12,021 in the 2015-2016 school year.
The school has shown signs of reversing the trend, however, with significant student body growth in several recent years.
Amid broader worries about the future of NCAA swimming programs in the new world of college athletics, this is the latest in a run of success stories for new programs. D1 schools Hofstra University and Merrimack College have both announced the addition of varsity programs in recent weeks as well.
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