NCAA Men's Division I Swimming and Diving Championships, King County Aquatic Center, Federal Way, Wash.

The King County Aquatic Center was a unique choice of venue for the NCAA Division I Men's Swimming and Diving Championships in March. For one thing, the facility is not a university, but rather a local partnership, explained Mike Dunwiddie, the aquatic center's director.

"It was a new business model for the NCAA to award this event not just to a college but to a local partnership, so we really wanted it to be a successful event," says Dunwiddie. "Every category went really well, and [our facility] exceeded their expectations in just about every area. The two biggest successes from the event were that we had the second largest attendance in the event's history, and eight national records were broken."

Wayne Burrow, the NCAA Championship Director, noted that the King County facility was also unique because the NCAA "hadn't been out on the West Coast for about 30 years." The King County Aquatic Center is the only facility on the West Coast that could even host the event because of its size and sophistication. In fact, only about 10 facilities nationwide have the facilities and size required to host these types of NCAA swimming and diving championship events.

"We'd heard [King County] was a ‘fast' pool," says Burrow, who acts as a staff liaison between the NCAA and the championship staff to coordinate events. "How they designed the pool is great — the pool doesn't produce turbulence that can slow people down. [The facility also has] seating for 2,000 people, and good deck space, so kids can sit with their teammates."

Colorado Time Systems played a big role in the meet, as the NCAA contracted with CTS to bring timing and judging equipment to the King County Aquatic Center. "It just happened that we'd replaced our giant scoreboard in December in preparation for this event," says Dunwiddie. However, the facility's scoreboard and judging equipment are made by Omega, not CTS — a big potential problem that was solved by CTS's team members.

"This was a big challenge, figuring out how to send the data up to that [Omega] scoreboard — the largest scoreboard in the country for a swimming facility," recalls Dunwiddie. "But [CTS] figured out a way to get the judging and timing equipment to display [on the scoreboard] as well. It looked like the whole thing was made for the event — it was put together seamlessly."

Since the King County Aquatic Center opened in 1990 for the Goodwill Games, the NCAA Division I Championship has been an event the center's staff wanted to put on their calendar. So having the event run smoothly was of paramount importance to the King County staff.

"The [CTS equipment] looked custom-made for the facility, like it had always been there," says Dunwiddie. "There weren't a lot of cables dragged out along the pool deck like spaghetti! To the credit of … [the CTS] crew, the equipment performed excellently."

NCAA Women's Division I Swimming and Diving Championships, Ohio State University

Christine Thompson is the facility host at Ohio State University's natatorium, an extremely busy venue that has hosted six major events already in 2008, including the NCAA Women's Division I Swimming and Diving Championships.

Won by the University of Arizona, the NCAA event was a phenomenal success for both the NCAA and Ohio State University. A number of NCAA records were set, as well as five American records.

"The Ohio State divers swept [first and second places] in the three-meter springboard and placed in the one-meter springboard, and the platform as well," says Thompson proudly. "We were fifteenth overall with just divers."

What makes the Ohio State facility unique? Thompson instantly lists several features. For one thing, the pool has 10 lanes. The NCAA uses only eight lanes, Thompson explains, but it's preferable to have two extra lanes for extra space on the sides of the pool.

"We also have two bulkheads that allow us to configure the pool in up to 20 different ways, so we can host any type of competition," she notes. "We also have wide decks, so the athletes on deck don't feel crowded. And we have an unstacked diving tower — divers prefer that."

Almost everything in the Ohio State natatorium is new since the facility opened in autumn 2005: the CTS System 6, start system, full LED display scoreboard and custom 96-inch touchpads for all lanes. The one exception is a System 5 that the facility still runs for synchronized swimming.

An additional scoreboard was brought in and set up on scaffolding to display the current heat, instant results and video display — all at the same time. This was the scoreboard later shipped to the King County facility in Washington for the men's event.

Burrow, the NCAA's Championship Director, says that using the additional CTS scoreboard provides immediate updates to let fans and team members know exactly where things stand.

"We asked Colorado to bring in a special video display which acts as an ancillary to … the board they had, which we used for the timing," Burrow explains. "The ancillary board was used for special announcements, some video, the rankings of various athletes, team scores and so on."

Ohio State's heavy event schedule puts the facility's CTS system to the test — but the equipment, like the Ohio State swim team, has risen to the challenge.

"We've had no problems this season at all," says Thompson, "despite using the equipment every week for such a long period of time!"

Burrow says that he has been working with CTS for the entire 17 years he has been with the NCAA, and it's a relationship that gives him peace of mind to focus on other details besides equipment.

"If I can say that the timing system is good, the video display works, then I can get that out of my ‘worry column' — and any way you can reduce your ‘worry column' is good!" Burrow laughs. "It's a good partnership [with CTS], and we want to keep that relationship going."