Diggin'Dukes

About Our Campaign

The JMU Women’s Swimming & Diving team has always had dreams of taking a training trip during our fall break. Training trips allow us to create a stronger bond as a team and lead us to being successful collectively and individually. 

Training trips provide us with the opportunity to put in hard work that we never thought we would have the focused time to do. Swimming and diving is a sport that is repetitive with training, which means training in the same pool can be boring at times. By being able to train in new environments, our training trips provide a natural spark that jolts excitement back into training and that excitement continues when we return to campus — ultimately leading to better training all around. 

Additionally, due to our season spreading over a six-month period, we are unable to go home for fall break and have limited time home for Thanksgiving and winter break. 

Our goal is to spend the five days of fall break in 2025 on a training trip, allowing us to provide opportunities outside of our sport including:

• Team growth through travel; 
• Cultural engagement and experience;
• Training in a new environment; and
• Give us something to look forward to during campus break.

How Your Support Will IMPACT the JMU Swim & Dive Student-Athlete Experience

Your gift, of any amount, will help support our team's training trip — including travel, room and board, and experiential/team bonding — to benefit our student-athlete experience.

• 1 gift of $500 supports pool rental for one day of training
• 1 gift of $250 supports lodging for one student-athlete
• 1 gift of $250 supports meals for one student-athlete
• 1 gift of $150 supports one van rental per day

About JMU Swim & Dive

JMU Swimming and Diving is a program of excellence. Our team’s vision is to strive to be the best students, athletes, and humans we can be. We do this by giving our all every day, in and out of the pool, while acting with the upmost humility, respect, and accountability. 

We are a highly successful team in the pool and the classroom. We are 12-time conference champions — with our latest stretch being a five-year consecutive run from 2018-2022. We are hoping to continue that success this year with our first year in the Sun Belt Conference. In the classroom, we have consistently achieved a team grade point average (GPA) in the mid-3.0 range, while juggling our grueling six-month season schedule — which includes 20-hours of training per week and competitive meets in both semesters. 

Learn more about JMU Women’s Swimming and Diving and our 29 student-athletes at https://jmusports.com/sports/womens-swimming-and-diving. 

About Funds Raised During Diggin'Dukes

One hundred percent (100%) of funds raised in support of JMU Swim & Dive during the Diggin’Dukes campaign immediately go to the JMU Swim & Dive Sport Program Fund (restricted-use fund) and benefit the JMU Swim & Dive student-athlete experience.

Sport program funds are restricted-use funds that can only be utilized by the individual sport program. 100% of gifts made to sport program funds go to the selected sport program and are 100% tax deductible. 

If our goal is achieved, funds that exceed our goal will go to support our team operational needs during the 2024-2025 season. 

If we do not achieve our goal, funds raised during the Diggin’Dukes campaign will go to support team operational needs during the 2024-2025 season. 

Funds are allocated at the discretion of our coaches and administration.

Diggin'Dukes Leadership Team Members

Lauren Aylmer & Lexi Lehman (Dane Pedersen)