Oh, Howard.
As your bricks fell last year, an era ended at the University of Portland. Your beloved swimming pool where students could once take a dip, play, and compete in water polo is now a big hole in the ground — at least for the moment.
When the pool was removed, there was an outcry on campus to bring back a new one. That’s why when my fellow ASUP Senator Katie Coughlin and I sat down last semester to brainstorm ideas for our Athletics Committee to work on, bringing back a pool was our number one priority.
Throughout last semester, we researched other pool-less universities to see what strategies they used, collected feedback from the hundreds of UP students who took our survey, and coordinated with the Director of Finance to fund the project.
Katie and I are proud to announce that swimming is back. ASUP is now offering free pool passes to swim at the nearby Columbia Swimming Pool (located on 7701 N Chautauqua Blvd).
Students can bring their University of Portland IDs to the pool anytime during their business hours, including weekends. So, go for a workout or grab some friends for an afternoon. Your swim’s on us.
Stelios Papoutsakis is a sophomore electrical engineering major. He can be reached at papoutsa20@up.edu
