No offense to Billy Tubbs, but Mitch Loper didn’t hesitate when asked what he missed most about Kansas University.

“I miss going to basketball games, quite honestly,” Loper said.

A year ago, Loper was a freshman on KU’s men’s swimming and diving team. Today the freestyler/backstroker from Houston is still swimming, but at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

Loper is one of at least nine swimmers who left Mount Oread after KU athletic officials decided last March to drop men’s swimming and men’s tennis as varsity sports in order to save money an estimated $3.6 million over five years.

“I never considered staying,” Loper said, “but it was kind of tough leaving.”

Loper was one of the fortunate ones. He was able to obtain a scholarship.

“I was very lucky because the recruiting process at that point was about over,” he said.

Cory Gallagher wasn’t as fortunate. A freshman breaststroker from Norman, Okla., Gallagher held out hope KU officials would have a change of heart and reinstate the program.

“I didn’t start looking until May or June, which was a huge mistake,” said Gallagher, now at Southwest Missouri State. “I was holding out. It was foolish of me.”

Loper didn’t let that happen.

“I set a date and if swimming wasn’t brought back I decided I’d sign somewhere else,” Loper said. “I was upset. I was mad at the time. Now, looking back, I think it worked out for the better. I had picked KU over TCU and LSU.”

Gallagher liked city

Gallagher came to Mount Oread on an academic scholarship. Now he’s at the Springfield, Mo., school without grant-in-aid, just because he didn’t want to give up competitive swimming.

“Personally, I liked Lawrence a lot. It was a good fit for me,” Gallagher said. “I always liked KU. When I was 11 or 12, I came up for a swim camp and I ended up coming five years in a row. I liked it.”

Now he’s at SMSU, he says, “because I didn’t want to have to drive more than two hours to go home.”

Swimming in Oklahoma was out of the question. No school in the Sooner State offers men’s swimming, certainly not Big 12 schools Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Today only three Big 12 schools still have men’s swimming Texas, Texas A&M and Missouri. Nebraska and Iowa State were, like Kansas, dropouts in 2001.

Only one of KU’s men’s swim transfers stayed within the Big 12. Chris Musfeldt, a breaststroker from North Kansas City, Mo., went to Missouri where he’s currently competing for the Tigers.

Now with Gophers

Another KU freshman last year, Dustin Chalfant of Topeka, wound up at Minnesota even though the Gophers didn’t give him a scholarship.

“I’m a breaststroker and I looked at programs around the country and Minnesota has the best breaststroke program,” Chalfant said. “I gave the coach a call to see if he was interested in me, and he was.”

Chalfant, a two-time YMCA All-American while at Topeka High, says he’s hopeful of landing a grant next year. Meanwhile, he’s competing for the Gophers. Chalfant has already achieved a personal best in the 100 breaststroke this season and he is just .07 seconds off his PR in the 200 breast.

Did he consider remaining at Kansas and giving up swimming?

“A little bit,” Chalfant replied, “but I was in school to swim for the most part.”

Chalfant, incidentally, no longer has ties to Topeka. His parents moved to suburban St. Louis after he graduated from high school.

“I miss my friends and coaches,” Chalfant said about KU, “but nothing outside of that.”

Other departures

Others who left KU (with their current school in parentheses) were:

l Everett DeHaven, a freshman freestyler from Salina (Evansville).

l Jason Hubbard, a red-shirt freshman freestyler from Highlands Ranch, Colo. (Wyoming).

l Anthony DiGiacco, a freshman diver from Farmington, N.M. (Alabama).

l Kyle Ediger, a freshman freestyler from Junction City (Truman State).

l Matt Hanson, a sophomore butterflyer from Blue Valley Northwest (SUNY-Stony Brook).

A dozen or so members of Kansas University’s last swim team decided not to transfer. All of them will remain on scholarship most of them had partial grants until their eligibility has been exhausted.

Adam Steele, a sophomore backstroker from Roswell, Ga., opted to return to Lawrence.

“I considered leaving for a little while,” Steele said, “but with two years left I wasn’t ready to start over.”

Steele has no qualms about continuing to receive his partial scholarship without doing anything to earn it.

“No, I really don’t,” he said, “because I signed a contract. I understood I’d be here for four years, so I don’t feel guilty at all.”

Steele has job

Now Steele spends the 20 hours a week he had been devoting to practice, weight-lifting and competition instead delivering food for a Lawrence restaurant. So he has a job in addition to a scholarship. However, not all of the same doors remain open.

“We still get to use the (athletic department’s) tutors and computers,” Steele said, “but we don’t get the early enrollment athletes get. That was a big change.”

Sometimes Steele and roommate Matt Geitz, another swimmer who stayed, would go watch the KU women’s team perform, but he has accepted the fact his days as a competitive swimmer are over.

“I still swim occasionally,” he said, “just to stay in shape.”

As close as he was to graduation, Ben Legler, a senior from Lawrence, saw no reason to leave, but he longs to stand on the starting blocks and wait for the starter’s pistol to sound.

“I miss competing more than anything,” Legler said, “but I don’t miss those 5:30 a.m. practices.”

Those pre-daybreak practices are not likely to resume anytime soon.

Gary Kempf is a former KU swimmer who coached the Jayhawks for nearly two decades. Today he’s an athletic department administrator who feels tugs from both directions.

Ex-coach empathizes

Kempf empathizes with the swimmers, but he is also closer to the bottom line now. He knew one or two sports had to go.

“The alternative was very, very difficult,” Kempf said. “The problem is you can’t support swimming on a year-to-year basis. It has to be for five years so you can tell recruits the program will be there.”

It’s conceivable men’s swimming and tennis would be reinstated if Kansas were able to generate more football income. KU ranks next-to-last in Big 12 Conference football attendance, and new athletic director Al Bohl has made no secret about prioritizing football.

“Dr. Bohl has often mentioned swimming,” Kempf said, “but we’ll have to make strides in football first.”