Grant House Got Involved With Lawsuit to ‘Open Up The Doors’

Grant House Got Involved With NCAA Lawsuit to ‘Open Up The Doors,’ Not Deny Opportunities

When he became associated with the lawsuit that would later bear his name, Grant House had no idea of the wide-ranging implications for college sports that would result over the next several years. He never expected to be the individual his fellow swimmers would blame for losing their opportunities to swim in college. Rather, House thought he was working for a brighter future for college athletes, with a focus on those in non-revenue sports such as swimming. He believed his accomplishments swimming for Arizona State and for the United States at international competitions would help the movement gain legitimacy.

“They thought I checked off all the boxes, and I was the ideal candidate for this. And what I didn’t know at the time was getting involved in,” House said. “I think a lot of people think this is just about tearing down college sports, and it’s really about rewriting the rules so Olympic sport athletes and swimmers, especially, have something they can build on their own.”

Over the weeks and months following his initial involvement, House realized that the group with which he had involved himself had more landscape-altering goals than he initially realized, leading to the eventual settlement expected to be adopted in time for the 2025-26 season. That settlement will allow direct payments to athletes and eliminate scholarship maximums for universities in Power Conferences and other conferences who opt in but institute strict roster limits for each sport, with swimming and diving maxed at 30 spots per gender.

With coaches and university officials expecting the House settlement to be in place for next season, hundreds of swimmers across the country have been cut from their teams and forced to seek new swimming homes via the transfer portal. The resulting financial changes are expected to create a discrepancy between well-funded swim teams and those who lose funding while their athletic department redirects money toward revenue-generating sports like football and basketball. Further schools will simply cut their swim teams, citing the new legislation.

Grant House — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Not at all what House had in mind when he initially signed on, but even now, he insists he has no regrets. The former Sun Devil swimmer originally from the Cincinnati area believes that this latest transformation can build off the introduction of name, image and likeness (NIL) rights for college athletes four years ago, providing swimmers a chance to build their own brands and extend their careers.

“This lawsuit, this process, opens up the doors,” House said. “It’s opened up doors for athletes to now have that ability to create on their own, not just perform, but to actually create going forward, instead of just compete. And I think that’s a really big aspect that always spoke to me. Whenever I was done in college, whenever I’m done with the sport, really setting a platform for all Olympic sport athletes to have more foundation and support and resources to compete as long as they want.”

The roster limits, likely to be the most crippling aspect of the settlement relating to swimmers’ opportunities on the college level, were never part of the equation House expected when the process began. He does not understand their necessity and remains frustrated with the NCAA’s position on their implementation.

Claudia Wilkins, the federal judge overseeing the case, has denied final approval for the House settlement because of the potential for lost opportunities. She has suggested a compromise that would allow current student-athletes an exemption from roster caps and have a phased implementation of the new restrictions, but the NCAA has responded they will not force universities to keep already-cut athletes on their rosters.

“I think it shows the true nature of the NCAA,” House said. “I think the lawyers continuously not acknowledging the request of Judge Claudia Wilkins, and continuously over three processes now, with the final hearing included, not making any revisions or amendments really to her request of the roster limits shows how they value NCAA athletes and college athletes, and to amend the college roster limits, even just to grandfathering them.

“She’s not even asking them to eliminate them completely. It seems like she may want to, but just to have a compromise and middle ground, they’re not willing to budge at all, other than to most recently say, ‘Oh, we’re going to leave it up to the colleges.’”

House remains optimistic that his fellow swimmers will be able to overcome these changes, even if they are initially cut from their rosters or lose a chance to compete for their first-choice school. He hopes that swimmers will be able to find new swimming homes that “very well may be better suited for them, where they get better attention, energy and care and compassion from the coaching staff, rather than being one of the lower rungs of ladder at a bigger place.”

The most notable program to be cut so far has been Cal Poly, and House has met with swimmers from that team to offer his support, although the team still has an ambitious financial goal to attain in hopes of saving the program.

He realizes that many in the swimming community blame him for the massive upheaval surrounding the sport on the college level, but House still wants the public “to understand I’m not pulling the strings.” His aims to provide a brighter future for college swimmers turned into a paradigm-shifting wave that House, perhaps naively, could never have anticipated.

“I quite frankly don’t know these things that happen along the way. I’m not informed. I’m simply the lead plaintiff. I’m not making these decisions. I don’t wish this upon anyone. I wasn’t involved in the discussions for roster limits when it’s happening. I didn’t even know that was in the cards when these negotiations were going on, and so I’m really advocating for them.”