Blake Aued’s Legion Pool article (Aug. 8) contained a lot of good information, but all those numbers about attendance dropping give rise to more questions, which I’m hoping he will answer. Legion is a large, beautiful pool in the center of a group of University of Georgia dormitories. Why, when summer sizzles up to 108 degrees, don’t students swim there? OK, the changing areas aren’t too spiffy. And there is no “infinity pool edge,” whatever that is.

I’ve heard it is because there are no students in the dorms around the pool in the summer. They are instead filled with middle and high school students at summer camps. I’ve also been told is because the university doesn’t let folks know that they can join for a Campus Life fee of $35. And because Legion opened May 24, after most students left, and closed Aug. 10, as they were returning. When the pool is open, the hours are limited, and times and fees are not promoted well.  This is a recreational resource where people can exercise. Exercise is good. Why not offer swimming lessons in the mornings, as Athens did when it was managing the pool? Why not offer night swimming?

Legion Pool and Legion Field have been places where town and gown have come together for more than 75 years. Surely for less than the $2.6 million proposed for a new, smaller pool, Legion can be totally rebuilt to state of the art criteria, even with a spa bubble and infinity edge, if that is what people want.  I hope the Board of Regents will slow down and study this thing. Granted, a $10,000 annual water bill looks like a lot of water, but how does that compare with similar pools, and how much would it cost to stop water leaks? And why build a pool at Lake Herrick when nearby the Ramsey Center nearby has two large pools, indoor and outdoor?

Blake, I eagerly await more of your good reporting.

Conoly Hester

Athens