Celebration makes a big splash!

Dressed in a tuxedo, Athletics Director Jeff Long entered the swimnasium in Trees Hall to… Dressed in a tuxedo, Athletics Director Jeff Long entered the swimnasium in Trees Hall to applause and screams from the men’s swimming team.

Within minutes, though, six of the team’s swimmers were throwing him into the deep end of the pool in celebration of their recent Big East championship win.

As part of tradition, the team throws all of its coaches into the pool after winning a tournament. And when the team won their title for the eighth consecutive time — and 19th in the last 22 years — on Saturday, Feb. 21, the coaches went in.

But Long, who attended the first night of the competition, had to go to other events throughout the weekend and missed the team members being crowned champions. So, he agreed that he would let the team throw him into the pool as well, after the team returned to Pitt.

Long lived up to his agreement on Wednesday afternoon, becoming the first athletics director to be thrown into the pool.

Long said team members joked with him about when he was going to come through with his promise at an academics awards banquet, so they set the date and time for him to carry out his ceremonial plunge into the water.

“I added the little extra piece here with the tuxedo,” he said, adding that the water temperature was “not too bad.”

Long could have been a bad sport about it and backed out of the agreement; however, as he said, these types of events are what make collegiate sports special and unique. He added that by doing something like this, he could add attention to one of the sports programs that might not get as much attention as others.

“This is one way we’d get an added splash,” Long said with a laugh.

Before being thrown in, Long made sure that the swimmers could save him if he needed help. After receiving confirmation, he threw his shoes to the side and was ready for the throwing to begin.

Before Long entered the room, the team tried to convince Coach Chuck Knoles to get thrown in, again.

“Oh, no, no,” he warned his swimmers. “You guys pushed me in four times [already].”

After team members helped Long climb out of the pool, Knoles shook hands with Long as he stood outside the pool, drenched from head to toe.

“Jeff [Long], that’s a first,” Knoles said.

Brian Bonczk, who swims the 200-meter butterfly, did not realize that Long was actually going to be thrown in until he received an e-mail about it.

“I think it’s a pretty cool tradition,” Bonczk said. “I wouldn’t say he had to be in tux [though].”

Though other athletics directors haven’t been thrown in before, Bonczk hopes that this is something that will carry on into the future.