05/13/24 – Board of Control Adjusts Swimming & Diving Competition Start Date for 2024-2025

May 13, 2024 Athletic Department Blog Updates

At its May meeting, the KHSAA Board of Control made a revision to the swimming & diving competition starting date as well as the date for postseason competition. This will be the second year utilizing a three-round state format to continue efforts to grow participation throughout the state and resolve other logistical issues at postseason venues including reduced deck space and seating capacities.

This movement to an earlier starting date will further enable local options for start dates of the postseason and lessen potential conflicts with prospective state first-round and finals sites. This also addresses some expressed concerns regarding the intensity of postseason competition rounds and the desire to have additional time between those state rounds. This change in dates also necessitates an adjustment in the starting date for swimming meets in order to afford schools the previously adopted season length.

For 2025:

• The first swimming & diving meet can be held on or after November 4 with a first practice date of October 1. 
• Local regions may choose to hold the regional meet in one of two allowable weeks to address local issues and maximize flexibility. It will be a determination on local schools to decide whether to have the regions in week 29 (January 19 to January 25) or week 30 (January 26 to February 1)
• State First Round meets will be held during week 31 (February 2 to February 8).
• The State Finals will be held during week 33 (the weekend of February 20-22).
• The state Finals are largely locked into NFHS Calendar Week 33 for the next several years due to the timing of the SEC swim meet and facility availability.

With these adjustments known, the staff will now work on securing regional and State First Rounds sites and host schools.

In addition, the KHSAA Board of Control also approved for 2025 the presentation of a boys’ and girls’ combined state championship full series of trophies and awards in swimming & diving. Only those schools with participants of both genders at the State Finals would be eligible. 

As additional information becomes available about State Swimming & Diving including specifics around time schedules, it will be released to the member schools and on the KHSAA website in plenty of time for member school preparation. 

– KHSAA –

About the Kentucky High School Athletic Association
The Kentucky High School Athletic Association was organized in 1917 and is the agency designated by the Kentucky Department of Education to manage high school athletics in the Commonwealth. The Association is a voluntary nonprofit 501(c)3 organization made up of 289 member schools both public and non-public. The KHSAA awards 215 state championships to 51 teams and 164 individuals in 13 sports and 6 sport-activities, funds catastrophic insurance coverage for its more than 106,000 rostered member school student-athletes, provides coaching education and sports safety programs for more than 12,000 coaches, and licenses and facilitates the distribution of training material for over 4,000 contest officials.