Yesterday, shockwaves went through the swimming community when the news was leaked that Maryland would be cutting their swimming program. Fans took to the social mediosphere to protest the move.

But the move is a confusing one. Unlike Clemson, the most recent program to receive the ax, Maryland has already sunk the money into a world-class aquatics center, so the facility wasn’t the problem. The women are a rising program that won an ACC Championship in 2005, so the program’s level of success could be a factor, but not necessarily. The students perform well – the Terrapin men had a combined GPA of 3.02, which ranks 3rd among the school’s men’s programs. The women posted a perfect 100% graduation rate last year (as did women’s water polo). All of the usual culprits are mostly ruled out.

The programs were not doing well financially – true. The women’s program is reported to have lost over $900,000 by the Washington Post. Because Maryland Athletics is mandated to be “self-sustaining,” they have to pay for pool time in that big fancy natatorium, so in this case the quality of the facility might actually hurt them to some extent.

But could there be more to this? Could there be some deviousness to the cut?

Flash back to January of 2011. Maryland football coach Ralph Friedgen had just let the Terrapins to their 7th bowl game in 10 seasons, and was named the ACC Coach of the Year. Doesn’t sound like a season worthy of losing one’s job, but new Athletic Director Kevin Anderson had a different idea. He bought out Friedgen’s contract for $2 million, which in itself seems wasteful, especially for a coach who just completed a successful season.

The general consensus in the local media was that Friedgen was removed to make room for former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, who had been fired from his previous gig. Leach didn’t get the job, but was so close that “sources” reported that the job was his. The expectation was that Leach had the ability to take the program to a truly elite level, like he did at his previous stop.

What was sort of alluded to throughout, but never really stated by anyone official, was the reason why Leach was a specific target. Leach had a very close relationship with Kevin Plank, the founder of the athletic-wear company Under Armour, from the time they worked together on a massive partnership agreement in Lubbock. Plank is a former Maryland football player and team captain, and is extremely influential in College Park (local radio show hosts have gone as far as to say that he calls the shots).

Are things becoming clearer?

There needed to be cuts made at Maryland. It’s unlikely that swimming will be the only program cut. But if you take the first three programs that are being cut – Men’s Swimming, Women’s Swimming, and Water Polo – you’ll see that none of them provide a significant market for Under Armour. If there are programs to be cut, and if Plank has as much influence as some of purported, then it makes perfect sense that the aquatic sports are the first to go.

That alone might not be enough to develop a solid conspiracy theory. We have heard from a source close to the program, however, that the recommendation to cut these programs came directly from the Athletic Director Anderson, who jumped the gun on the committee that was assembled to make recommendations on the budget issues. Anderson’s hiring came around the same time as Under Armour really began to make big statements on the Maryland football uniforms (think Nike and Oregon – another program without a swimming program) and one assumes that Anderson and Plank are very tightly-knit.

As an aside – both Maryland and Oregon, each of whom are a “flagship program” of a major manufacturer, have acrobatics & tumbling teams. Might they see this as a potentially large market? 

The curveball here is that Under Armour does have a sponsorship deal with Michael Phelps, who is a Maryland resident. But he’s only sponsored for his dryland training, and not with the intent of appealing to a swimming audience. Rather, his sponsorship seems to be more to appeal to the general sports audience, many of whom can only name one swimmer, but they know that he’s ridiculously good at whatever it is that swimmers do.

So was this decision motivated by more than what is best for Maryland Athletics? Does Under Armour have too much influence about what goes on in the Athletics Department? Somebody somewhere knows. We don’t. It’s all speculative connecting-the-dots at this point. Read the evidence, and make a judgement for yourself.