What does strike me as strange is that before this announcement USA Swimming had three crucial roles they were hiring for. One is the CEO, with Tim Hinchey’s long awaited sacking. Then there is the National Team Director who will oversee that entirety of the “wet” side of the operation. Finally there is the National Junior Team coach.
Make no doubt about my position here. Debra Grodensky, Suzette Moran, Tracy Palmero and three other anonymous women deserve their day in court. They deserve to have their stories heard and ultimately I think they deserve restitution for what has been done to them and USA Swimming’s complicity in their abuse.
People who know me know that long before our current crisis I was firmly against training trips, or training camps, or getting on an airplane to go another place to swim. However, if anybody is looking for an easy budgetary cut for the upcoming season, provided you typically budgeted for such a trip, my advice is to CUT CUT CUT.
Like any virtue, though, loyalty can go wrong. People can be loyal to bad actors, an all too frequent occurrence in sport. But for today I’m not going to focus on that direction. I’m going to focus on the opposite. The fact of the matter, a true sign of a weak leader is that they value loyalty above all else.
A few listeners have written inquiring about the status of the Swim Brief, my erstwhile podcast. The last one was recorded just before everything went to hell and then released in March. So to the loyal listeners/readers, I will explain that and a few other ongoing announcements about Chris DeSantis Coaching.
College swimming, especially Men’s college swimming, was already in a precarious position. In many athletic departments, even Division 1 programs, teams were understaffed, coaches were underpaid and scholarships were underfunded. Many athletic directors judged their swimming and diving programs with absolutely no skin in the game.
I’m not here to place blame on USA Swimming. I was, on a personal level, at least as unprepared for the ground shifting out from under me within the last two months. I built a business mainly around me FLYING ON AN airplane to places and working in close proximity. My last trip was to Norway and Denmark, something I can’t even imagine when it will be ok to do again.
If for no other purpose than my own self improvement, I’m going to allow myself to daydream some positive outcomes from this current crisis. Please don’t take any of the below as ignorance of all the problems that American swim teams, and swim teams in general, are facing and will face in the future.
Yesterday, Swimswam posted an editorial advocating that the US join the rest of the world and go to swimming meters. Now, I haven’t read that article, but I’m going to respond to it because this is the internet and it’s incumbent for all of us to just spout off without having considered anyone else’s point of view. Before I could do that, Steve Schaffer said it best in a facebook comment:
Several weeks ago, shockwaves reverberated across the Danish Swimming community. Pia Holmen, the top official in Danish Swimming for roughly the last twenty years, had to resign in disgrace, after an official government investigation found her leadership during that period lacking (link in Danish).
Now you might find yourself asking. Who is Will Colebank? As usual, Irv Muchnick is here to help.
Did you know that USA Swimming fired its club development director over communications he made with a 12 year old boy and pornographic images found on his work computer. They did not turn him into law enforcement. His name? Williard “Will” Colebank.
