On what would have otherwise been a normal Saturday morning practice at the Aquatic & Fitness Center March 1, the Virginia divers gathered in the pool deck classroom for an impromptu meeting with Coach Todd DeSorbo. The divers were notified of the meeting — but not its contents — just hours before it occurred, by former interim diving coach Jack Gigliotti.
At this meeting, the divers learned that their program would be cut. To provide insight on the content of this meeting and its effects, The Cavalier Daily spoke with a quartet of former divers.
With brewings of future roster caps on NCAA athletic programs — that later culminated in the passing of the House settlement in June — many student-athletes were aware early on that cuts would be made, at least on an individual level.
Dean Treanor, former diver and third-year College student, carpooled with Morgan Manley, fellow former diver and third-year Batten student, to the meeting on that chilling morning. Treanor said that he anticipated prior to the meeting that it was not out of the realm of possibility for the diving team to feel the early effects of the settlement.
“I remember driving with Morgan [to the meeting], and it was a really quiet car,” Treanor said. “But I was just like, ‘I think this is the time that we get cut, Morgan.’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, I really don't have a good feeling about this.’”
Ruby Borzekowski, former diver and third-year College student, was present for the meeting in the pooldeck classroom. Borzekowski said that as the meeting was happening, she could see the swimmers exiting the pool and glancing into the meeting through the glass windows of the classroom.
This division from the swimmers foreshadowed the devastating news the divers were about to hear from DeSorbo — that the diving team was going to be put on “pause” for the foreseeable future. Treanor asked for further clarification during DeSorbo’s announcement — his use of the word “pause” confused many in the room.
“One of my teammates asked … ‘What is a pause?’ And they told us that there was not going to be a dive team in the near future,” Borzekowski said. “I think I just blacked out the rest of that conversation … I think I just looked out the window. I was like, ‘I don't even want to listen to this right now.’”
Ultimately, both during the meeting and in the aftermath of it, divers were left with little clarification other than that they would not be competing in the 2025-26 collegiate season.
This “pause” followed a series of years of coaching turnover. After spending just two years in the position, former diving coach Josh Arndt left at the beginning of the 2024-25 season. Gigliotti then took Arndt’s place while also maintaining a full-time job unrelated to athletics, according to Braden Keith of SwimSwam.
Despite feeling disappointed, Class of 2025 alumna Lizzy Kaye was also not entirely surprised to hear the news about the program.
“I wasn't 100 percent shocked,” Kaye said. “From the business side of things, it does make sense … it doesn't mean I agree with it, and it doesn't mean I'm okay with it at all, but it does make sense to an extent.”
Kaye — a role model for divers like Treanor, Manley and Borzekowski — was a senior at the time and on the tail end of her historic run for Cavalier diving. Despite having three coaches during her four-year tenure, Kaye became Virginia’s first All-American diver in the program’s history, reaching the finals in meets such as the NCAA and ACC Championships.
The stage that Kaye set for the upcoming classes was one of excellence, and she mentioned feeling great disappointment upon hearing the news that she would not be able to see the underclassmen strive for that same caliber.
“I felt so bad for everybody else that was younger than me, because, you know, this is their dream,” Kaye said. “This is something you train for your entire life, to be a college athlete, if that's something that you want to do, and just to have that taken away from you in seconds is completely heartbreaking and just crushing.”
Borzekowski said the divers crafted an email sent to Athletic Director Carla Williams June 19, among other senior members of Virginia Athletics, seeking a formal, tangible rationale as to why DeSorbo and his coaching staff decided to cut the entire program. According to Borzekowski, the divers’ email was acknowledged by Williams, saying she stood behind DeSorbo’s decision, but no further rationale related to the cut of the program was provided.
Now, months since the “pause” on the program, Virginia Athletics has yet to provide further explanation beyond the one provided publicly in March. In a written statement to The Cavalier Daily, Erich Bacher, associate athletics director for athletic communications, wrote that factors such as the House settlement were relevant to the decision-making process, and that resource allocation strategy was a key priority for the program. Details on the decision beyond Bacher’s written statement are unknown.
“The changing landscape of college athletics, which includes the House Settlement, required the University of Virginia swimming and diving program to make strategic and difficult decisions regarding its roster and staff,” Bacher wrote.
Treanor was formerly a representative for the program on Virginia’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee. This role enabled him to attend meetings prior to March with Williams and other Virginia Athletics leadership. Treanor said that early rumors of the settlement and roster cuts were large topics of conversation and inquiry for Williams and her team in the months leading up to the March decision for Cavalier diving.
Treanor also noted that cutting diving meant missing out on an Olympic sport, which he said felt ironic given the department’s recent unveiling of their Olympic Sports Center, a symbol of the University’s commitment to non-revenue sports.
“We have really, really good Olympic institutions. And then we even have this new Olympic Center which is going to be huge … and then to hear that, and then to cut the most Olympic of Olympic sports … that was I think the biggest backstab in all this,” Treanor said.
Notably, Virginia as a team earns fewer points for swimming and diving competitions moving forward. For instance, at the Cavaliers’ recent dual against the Tar Heels, North Carolina kicked off the meet with 32 more points than Virginia, simply due to the existence of their diving program.
A lack of diving did not impact Virginia’s ability to sweep the meet this time, but according to all four divers, has potential to — both this spring and in years to come — especially at the championship level. Close competitors such as Stanford, Texas and Indiana all have diving programs that will contribute points in national competitions that the Cavaliers will not have the ability to contest against.
According to Manley, Virginia’s “pause” on the program is reflective of a larger trend throughout collegiate sports nationwide. She noted that, in a NCAA landscape that is increasingly driven by monetary gains, athletes that compete in non-revenue sports such as diving will continue to fight for relevancy.
“We’re seeing a huge shift from a very athletic competition-based landscape to a very monetary landscape, and that's starting to matter a lot more in ways that it didn't used to,” Manley said. “I was one of those athletes that was recruited on potential … But that has really gone away in the NCAA, at least from the standpoint that I've seen.”
Though many divers like Manley, Borzekowski and Treanor remained at the University instead of transferring to other schools to compete as collegiate divers, their inability to end their collegiate sporting careers on their own terms will persist as the ending to their diving careers.
“I think that was the hardest part … you start to internalize it. You're like, okay, maybe I'm just not good enough, and that's why I'm getting cut," Treanor said. "I was a great diver, but I'm just battling an institutional change, and I'm battling a systemic problem of never investing in diving ... and that's not my fault. That's not what I put in.”
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