I have had a somewhat odd career. I went straight through college and law school. I spent 15 years working for a large law firm. That experience left me frustrated and bored. In my mid-30s, I felt forced to reassess my life and direction. I asked myself what did I really love? The answer was that I really loved sports. I was fortunate because I was able to get a job on the marketing team in the athletic department at a large FBS university.
In a dozen years at the university I was able to work my way up to associate athletic director. However, that job took its toll also. Two of our football players raped a coed. One of our basketball players punched a city police department horse. Our number two women's doubles tennis team was being paid to throw matches for gamblers. I had never known that people bet on college women's tennis.
I was very ready for a move when a friend told me that a small school in the Great Lakes region was looking for an athletic director. I did some research on the school. It was very small. There was no football team, and the men's and women's basketball teams had been horrid for years. What the school's sports program was very good at were the "country club sports:" golf, tennis, and swimming & diving.
I also learned that the campus was beautiful, set on rolling hills with lots of trees. The school was just outside a small town which depended on the college. A major city with which I was very familiar was about 50 miles away. The school was academically rigorous and very, very liberal. I sent in my resume.
To make a long story a bit shorter, I was hired as the school's athletic director at a salary surprisingly close to what my colleagues in the Big Ten were making. The school also gave me the down-payment on a house on a wooded lot about two miles from campus. I thought that I had hit a home run.
I started in the summer. Most of the students were gone until August. It seemed a good time to sit down with our coaches one-on-one to see where our teams were and where they were headed. The first coach I met with was Sarah Smathers, our swimming and diving coach. Technically, the college had both men's and women's swimming. In fact, we had no male swimmers. We only had a women's team.
The highlight of Sarah's resume was two fourth-places finishes at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. She had retired from competition after those Olympics and had been hired as coach at the school that fall. She had been successful. Her team had won the conference team title each year since she had been coach, and she had several individual conference champions. She had sent several swimmers and divers to the NCAA championships. She was reputed to be a very good teacher. What had really burnished her reputation was that three of her girls had swum for different countries at the London Olympics in 2012.
What the resume and reputation did not tell you was that Sarah was drop-dead beautiful. She had shoulder-length blonde hair, a perfect figure, and a face that I cannot even describe. Every so often, she would get a mischievous gleam in her eye that made you very curious to know what she was really thinking. She was also extremely bright and a kind and caring person. Even her voice was sexy. Believe it or not, Sarah was more-or-less perfect.
Sarah had only one assistant coach, Glenda. She also had a very strong team. Over the three years she had been coach, she had been able to recruit several top high school swimmers. Three of her girls were strong candidates to make the Rio games. That was not a small feat at a school that did not give athletic scholarships. Largely due to her personal charisma, the school had built a state-of-the-art natatorium which had opened the spring before I arrived.
Sarah and I quickly came to agreement that swimming & diving were the center-piece of the school's athletic program. The challenge was to make some money on it or, at least, to draw some spectators. No one goes to swim meets except other swimmers, boyfriends and girlfriends, and, sometimes, parents. Drawing people to our swim meets was going to be a real challenge, one to which we did not have an immediate solution.
I had been in my job about three months when the collegiate swimming season was about to start. One morning, Sarah called me and asked if we could have a meeting and if she could bring three of her swimmers. No opportunity to see Sarah was to be passed up, so I instantly agreed.
Sarah arrived in my small office just after lunch with two of her top female swimmers and her top female diver. With five people in the office, we were sitting very close together.
"What's up," I asked.
Sarah had that gleam in her eye. "I think I'll just let Haley, Dawn, and Rebecca tell you."
Another thing that I should mention is that Sarah not only recruited good swimmers, her swimmers were also physically very attractive. That was an understatement as applied to the three girls sitting in my office. They were damned near as beautiful as their coach.
Haley, a redheaded sprinter, started the conversation. "We've got a very good team, but no one comes to our meets, right? So what we need is something out of the ordinary to draw people. We have an idea. We've discussed it among ourselves and we think it might work. Our first meet is a girls-only meet here against Redford. I know some of the girls who swim for Redford, so I called them. They are willing to give our idea a try."
"Ok, what is your idea?" I asked.
There was a moment of silence and some blushing. Finally, Dawn, the diver, spoke up.
"Our idea is to have the meet in the nude."
I began to think that I was the butt of some sort of joke. "Excuse me, what did you say?"
Rebecca, a distance swimmer, responded. "What she said was that we and the girls at Redford have agreed that everyone swimming or diving at our meet with them will be naked. That should draw some people."
I looked at the three athletes. "You'd do that?"
"Hey," Haley said, "if showing my bare ass and tits puts some butts in the seats, I'll do it gladly." The other two girls nodded.
Feeling a bit trapped and disbelieving, I looked at Sarah. She smiled and shrugged.
"This wasn't my idea, but I think that it might work. I've talked to Gail, the coach at Redford. She's ok with it. Besides, it should be fun for the girls. It really is more fun to swim naked than wearing a suit."
"You're serious about this?" I asked again.
In unison, all four women gave an emphatic "yes."
"What about meet officials?" I asked, hoping for an out.
Sarah had an answer for that too. "I talked to Sherry Bauer, supervisor for this region. She called around to the officials who usually work our meets. They are fine with the idea, and Sherry says that there is nothing in the rulebook that requires swimmers to wear suits. I guess it is just assumed that they will."
"When is the Redford meet?" I asked.
"A month from Saturday," Haley informed me.
"Well, if we do this, it will be controversial. I'm not going to approve this idea on my own authority. Let me talk to President Stevenson. Don't get your hopes up." I paused. "As I think about it, I think that we all should meet with the President."
I had only met Susan Stevenson, the college president, once. I called her secretary and asked whether I could have a meeting. I added that I wanted to bring one of our coaches and a few athletes. The secretary said that the President had a half-hour at 10:00 a.m. the following morning.
When I arrive at the door to the college president's office at 9:55 the next morning, Sarah and her assistant, Glenda, were already in the hall. So was our entire women's swim team. All 20 girls.
The president's secretary opened the door, looked at the crowd, and said "Oh, my. Are you all here for this one meeting?" On our affirmative response, she said "Give me a minute."
