The DakotaDome pool has been the center of the USD swim and dive program since 1979, and after nearly 45 years of early morning practices, broken pool records and boisterous meet days, the Dome pool will enter retirement.
 
On Saturday, the Dome will host its last swim meet. The end couldn't be more poetic: a home duel against in-state rival SDSU.
 
As this chapter ends, the Dome pool's legacy lives on in each student-athlete and coach that has walked through its doors.
 
Head coach Jason Mahowald has spent the entirety of his head coaching career in one pool. For 19 years he has paced up and down the Dome pool sidelines cheering, motivating and pushing his athletes to be their best selves.
 
Fifth-year Zachary Kopp has excelled in the Dome pool, breaking record after record with his relay team. But for Kopp, the highlight of his Dome career was sharing it with his two older brothers.
 
Freshman Anna Balfanz was recruited on the idea of a new state-of-the-art facility set to open this fall, but the family-like atmosphere fostered by the Dome was what ultimately drew her to campus.
 
"Everyone's swimming in the same history," Kopp said.
 
And that history will be shared for the last time this weekend.
 
Both Kopp and Balfanz said the best part about a meet day is having all the athletes together, cheering and screaming for one another. When the pool gets loud, you know it's going to be a good meet.
 
"We've won some meets that we probably shouldn't have won, but because of the Dome atmosphere we were able to come out victorious," Mahowald said.
 
With the new facility, the pool will be almost double the size of the current one which will allow not only meet days to have a loud atmosphere, but also practices.
 
"We all feed off each other," Balfanz said. "When we're all together, the energy is so much higher and it really pushes me to make the most out of every set, every practice."
 
The new Wellness Center pool will allow for a multitude of new opportunities. The pool will have six more lanes than the Dome pool and will be the Olympic length which will allow swimming and diving to practice simultaneously. There will also be seating for spectators which is currently housed in a makeshift catwalk in the Dome.
 
"This will put us leaps and bounds ahead of most of our competitors in the region," Mahowald said. "The new facility will allow us to train at the Olympic distance which will help us attract athletes that are looking to go to that next level."
 
Kopp believes this change is coming at the perfect time. He said in recent years the team has grown and excelled at really high levels and this new facility will give the program what it needs to continue in that direction.
 
"I'm excited for the new pool and there's a lot of jealousy on my part that I won't get to swim in it, Kopp said. "I'm very thankful that as the team continues to grow and get better, we now get a state-of-the-art facility that we can set new records in and have new experiences in."
 
Balfanz's class may be the first ones to do just that. They will be among the first to swim in the new facility and the first to mark their names in the record books. This current swim class can start a new legacy for the swim and dive program.
 
Ultimately, regardless of what pool the program calls home, the swim and dive's all-in-this-together mentality will live on as something the DakotaDome pool started back in 1979.
 
"I was able to come here to USD where I was on a team where it felt like family, it felt like home," Kopp said. "Whether that was because we got to share the Dome with so much history or not, it shaped me into the person I am today."
 
The Coyotes and Jacks duel at 10 a.m. Saturday ahead of the men's basketball game featuring USD and SDSU at 1 p.m. in the Sanford Coyote Sports Center.