LARAMIE – There was pomp and circumstance.
 
And some tears.
 
The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Wyoming Aquatic Center last Friday was an emotional event for a standing-room-only crowd that packed into the pristine new facility.
 
Tom Burman, the UW athletics director for 20 years, has been working to make the venue a reality for as long as he can remember.
 
"All I can say is, 'Wow!'" Burman said while looking at the faces of the UW swimming and diving team that christened the venue with the Brown vs. Gold intrasquad meet Saturday morning. "This has been a dream of many for a long, long time."
 
Members of the Board of Trustees, including Chairman Michelle Sullivan of Sheridan, were in attendance to see the finished project they spent years lobbying the Wyoming Legislature to fund and complete.
 
"I wasn't sure I'd be able to speak. I was overcome with such pride," Sullivan said after walking through the beaming current Cowboys and Cowgirls on her way into the building. "We consistently prove, as an institution, that we can do hard things."
 
Shane Reeves, the new UW president, was the first guest speaker introduced by Burman.
 
"It is stunning when you walk in," Reeves said. "It is honestly a great investment for our state and university."
 
Since being elevated from assistant to UW's head coach in 2017, Dave Denniston consistently made a point of visiting Burman's office to check on the dream of making the Aquatic Center a reality.
 
"I know he usually left pissed off," Burman noted of the slow progress reports.
 
A flood of different emotions hit Denniston on this special day, with the 50-meter, 10-lane pool, diving well, 1-meter and 3-meter springboards, and 3-meter and 5-meter platforms serving as a backdrop.
 
After the ceremony, the Cowboys and Cowgirls gave fans a tour of the entire facility, which includes locker rooms, a fueling station and meeting rooms for the team.
 
"I didn't know this many people would be here. I didn't know if this building would ever be built," Denniston told the crowd. "That's the thing about dreams; you hold onto them."
 
In its final season training at Corbett Pool, which opened in 1975, UW swimming and diving sent six members of the team to the NCAA Championships, the most in program history.
 
Expectations are high for the 2026-27 campaign, which begins at the Front Range Invite this weekend in Fort Collins and continues with a home meet against Air Force on Oct. 10, as the Cowboys and Cowgirls settle into their new digs.
 
"Now we have a facility that meets the standard of the University of Wyoming and its athletes," senior Tara Joyce said. Joyce competed in the 100- and 200-yard freestyle at the NCAA Championships in March.
 
The Aquatic Center will make sure the program, state and university hold onto the memories of the three swimmers who died in a car accident in February 2022. A permanent memorial for Charlie Clark, Carson Muir and Luke Slabber will honor them in the new facility.
 
The parents of all three swimmers and two siblings made their way back to Laramie for the ceremony. Former UW coaches, swimmers and divers dating back to the 1970s also showed up to celebrate the program's bright future and remember the past.
 
At the memorial service in the aftermath of losing Clark, Muir and Slabber, then-senior swimmer Madeline Bane responded to the tragedy with these words:
 
"It is said that grief is like an ocean. It comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it's overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. If there's anything we all know, it's how to swim, and we do it well. We've done it way too long and too much. Maybe we've had some ups and downs, but it shaped us, it defined us, and it pulled us together. I can honestly say that I'm bonded to each of you for life.
 
"But the swimming we have to do now is completely different. It's swimming to survive. It's swimming to pull through a tragedy that threatens to drown each and every one of us. It's swimming to make it to the other side of a deep loss in a way that celebrates and honors the people that we miss so dearly."
 
Follow Ryan for more stories on Wyoming athletics on X at @By_RyanThorburn on Facebook at Wyoming Athletics and Instagram at wyoathletics. Also follow him at Pokes Insider at Gowyo.com/pokesinsider.
 
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