The MSU swimming and diving team are out of luck. After almost a month of the outdoor pool facility being closed for the season annually, the coaching staff finds itself in a tough situation with scheduling and the lack of facilities.

"It takes a lot of finesse on our part to get the kids in so they have enough room to practice and practice well," head coach Matt Gianiodis said.

"If the outdoor pool was available to us all year long, we would have basically the most pool space, if you count all the pools on campus, of any team in the Big Ten. Once we lose this, we run into problems."

Crammed into an eight-lane pool in the IM Sports-West building, Gianiodis and his staff struggle to find time for 60 swimmers and divers. He said it is a big adjustment come November. Many of the practice times are spread throughout the day to accommodate all the athletes. Morning, afternoon and evening practices are put in use to get as much out of their allotted pool time.

"To put it in perspective, Michigan, at any given time, has almost 20 lanes available to them," Gianiodis said. "To be able to practice well and to get the whole team together at once, once the outdoor pool shuts down, we really don't ever get that opportunity that often."

In addition to swimmers having limited space during the majority of their season, their facilities have become dated and put them behind other universities' advances in aquatic centers.

IM Sports-West was "the Mecca" of recreational sports and a "national leader" when it was erected in 1959, according to Gianiodis. But today, compared to other schools, let alone in the Big Ten, MSU's pool is lacking.

"Any coach in any position would say that they want brand new facilities," Gianiodis said. "Am I satisfied with our facilities? No, because of all of the schools in the Big Ten, ours is the worst. We have the worst facility."

While Gianiodis and the athletic department are well aware of the situation with the pool facilities, financially, the athletic department and university cannot make the renovations feasible, according to MSU athletics director Ron Mason.

"They are doing a marvelous job with what they have," Mason said. "We aren't in a position to go out and build a new auditorium, recreational center-type thing. We are not in the position to have the funds to do that."

Gianiodis agrees. He said the athletic department understands the situation he and the coaching staff are in.

"Our athletic department is not in the position to upgrade our facility here," he said.

But when traveling the country to other schools, Gianiodis and his staff notice the difference between MSU facilities and other schools.

"The biggest issue that the student body doesn't address in general, is the fact that they don't have a campus recreational facility that serves the university community," Gianiodis said.

He said he found himself in a campus recreational facility at the University of Kentucky, and on a Friday night at 7:30, the facility was packed with students. Many of these centers have attached aquatic centers, which is where Gianiodis said MSU would benefit from a building like this.

"In my own way, it strikes through a lot of what is going on with tailgating and what is going on Friday and Saturday nights, there are not really a lot of alternatives," Gianiodis said.

Not only would a new, complete recreational facility with an attached aquatics center give students something else to do on the weekends, Gianiodis said, it also would help MSU contend with other schools' facilities.

With what is seen as the worst facility in the Big Ten, recruiting can be a challenge for the school, taking their searches internationally to find students, Gianiodis said.

"We sometimes have to go overseas because kids from overseas could care less about facilities, they just want to be in school in the United States," Gianiodis said. "Frankly, we just have to be creative and we have to do something different."

Once athletes reach a certain level, they train for the next stage of competitions. MSU currently does not have the training space to handle these requirements.

"The biggest thing that is hurting recruiting is that the Big Ten is a premier conference in the country and kids go where they think they can take it to the next level," Gianiodis said. "Domestically, kids are going to have a hard time going to Michigan State because they can't train in the top-sized pools, so it hurts, it hurts recruiting, no question about it."

MSU athletes have even traveled to the Canham Natatorium at U-M for their training, which can be quite tough.

"There are times when our kids are training for international competition and we have to take them down to Michigan," Gianiodis said. "A Michigan Stater is going to Michigan to train in their facilities. There are times when it gets a little embarrassing to make that trek down there wearing green and white. They are a benchmark program in the Big Ten, they have won so many different championships.?

"Swimming underneath those banners, it's tough, it's difficult."

But MSU presses on to do the best they can in what the Spartans are provided for facilities. There has been talk of enclosing the outdoor pool at IM West for year-round use for an estimated $250,000, which would be great for the program. But nothing has seriously been looked at yet, Mason said.

"With both pools open we have facilities," Gianiodis said. "When we come indoors, we lose two-thirds of our training space. We go from a 100-yard field to a 30-yard field.

"If they put a cover on our outdoor pool, it would help our program exponentially."

Junior swimmer Rudolf Wagenaar, originally from South Africa, said the facilities' conditions at MSU aren't bad at all. He said they are better than where he comes from, so he appreciates what MSU provides for the team.