Jan 29, 2015 3 min read

In Upper St. Clair, education has always been a high priority. Residents are rightfully proud of the high standards in academic, athletic and artistic achievement in their school system. In 2014, “U.S. News & World Report” ranked Upper St. Clair High School as one of the best high schools in America, sixth overall in Pennsylvania.

Similarly, the arts programs at USC are of the highest quality. The USC Theater is a state-of-the-art venue for music and stage productions and is valued as a community asset.

Upper St. Clair High School, one of the smaller Quad A schools, has long distinguished itself in interscholastic athletics, with eight boys, girls and five coed teams competing in 16 sports. In nearly all of these, the facilities are at least adequate, and in many sports, outstanding. Regrettably, in the sport of competitive swimming, the facilities are embarrassingly inferior, especially in comparison to the eight-lane, state-of-the-art pools recently constructed in Bethel Park, Mt. Lebanon, Moon and currently under construction in Fox Chapel, not to mention the Olympic-size facility at Chartiers Valley High School.

The five-lane USC high school pool was built in the 1950s when the original high school was constructed, and it was left untouched in the renovation of the late ’90s. Nearly all high schools in the WPIAL compete in swimming and only one other school, Hopewell, competes in a five-lane pool.

In competitive swimming, pool size directly impacts participation. Home swim meets at USC limit the number of competitors to half the number of swimmers who could participate at the new Mt. Lebanon pool. Swim training programs are similarly affected, both in the numbers of athletes who can participate and the quality of the training programs offered. If the size of the swimming pool at USC were replicated at the football stadium, home Panther football games would be contested on an 80-yard field with six players on each team.

Despite this lack of facilities, USC swim teams have competed reasonably well at the championship level. Results at WPIAL and PIAA championships are disproportionally driven by the performance of a small number of elite athletes and USC has always seemed to produce their share of these. Often these athletes choose to train at other facilities in order to develop their skills in pursuit of college swimming scholarships. Unfortunately, inadequate facilities impact hundreds of USC age group and middle school swimmers or kids just trying to make the high school team, more than the elite athletes who go on to compete at the championships.

While the USC School District is rightfully proud of the many opportunities offered to its young people and the facilities provided for them, competitive swimmers and the families who support them have every right to feel left behind. As February brings this year’s WPIAL swimming season to a close with the championships at the University of Pittsburgh’s Trees Pool, the time has come to correct this inequity.

Steve Lynch

Upper St. Clair