Congressman Andrew Garbarino of the United States proposed legislation on Tuesday that would restrict the number of international athletes on the roster to 20%, following the Protect College Sports Act, but what effect would that have on college swim and dive programs?

Leslie Lucas, owner of College Swimming Consulting and the mother of University of Texas junior Cooper Lucas, breaks down current power-four rosters and has compiled the data for Swim Swam.

Lucas used the hometown/country on each school's roster page, so there may be a few hiccups with athletes who grew up in the U.S. but go by a different country on the international stage, such as NC State's Kaii Winkler who was raised here but competes for Germany.

Even though the bill is far from passing, it's an interesting conversation to have as more and more complaints about the number of international athletes in the NCAA appear in the NCAA all sports banter and even in the comments of Swim Swam.

For example, in the data Swim Swam published yesterday, men's and women's swimming & diving had less than 20% international freshmen on their rosters in 2022, but the team specific data is a little more interesting.

We'll look at just the men's teams in this article.

Some schools and leagues lean significantly more on international athletes than others. Florida men's team has the most international players, with 63% of the roster made up of 2025-26 (15/24).

The remaining 5 men's teams that have at least 50% international players are all in the SEC; Auburn (59%; 13/22), LSU (55%; 11/20), Tennessee (52%; 13/25) and Georgia and Kentucky are both at 50%.

In summary, 31 of the remaining 42 men's teams are over this 20% threshold including seven of the top-10 NCAA teams in 2026.

Duke had the lowest percentage of international men of the power four schools with only one man on the roster, freshman Yavuz Omer Aga from Turkey.

Written by

Lakshya