Re-Creating America's Club Swimming System by John Leonard, Executive Director, ASCA

Part 3:  What are we afraid of?

More of this Feature • Part 1: What's Wrong? • Part 2: Need to Invest! • Part 3: We're Afraid • Part 4: Is Club Swimming Important?   Join the Discussion "The National Governing Body for swimming in the USA is USA-Swimming. Does it work to benefit swimmers in the best possible way? Do our swimming clubs have what they need to continue to compete at the world level, or will our countries size continue to allow us to luck into a enough good swimmers from time to time to keep us happy with the status quo? What systems do other countries use that seem to work? Look at the Aussies - much smaller than the USA, but as good or better in many areas. Why?" About Swimming Guide      Related Resources • Governing Bodies • Find your team • Other Aquatic Sports    Elsewhere on the Web • ASCA Online • Seven Traits of a Successful Age Group Swim Club

Number Six - We're Afraid of Competition

Gulp. Hard to say. The same people who can tell you about the wonders and joys of competition for their children, want to make sure that all clubs are USA Swimming Clubs…regardless of whether they have the same mission in life or not…our governance acts as if "it's a club, it has to be a USA Swimming Club". We ignore the fact that many Parks and Recreation Leagues around the USA exist without USA Swimming, that country club leagues and summer club leagues have gone well for decades without us. That High School swimming is arguably the most popular part of our sport and the part that is most important to the athletes in those areas of the USA where high school swimming exists.

We want "everyone" to have a USA Swimming Club. Regardless of what they stand for. Regardless of what their aims are. We worry about the competition if another organization (like a super YMCA?) decides to operate a "different kind" of national program.

USA Swimming Clubs need to stand for something. One of the things we need to Stand For and Be, is about Professional Coaching for your child...the kind of coaching that can effectively manage the entire swimming career of your child. The sort of coaching that can ensure that the child will not be subjected to "little league baseball" mentality of sport, in any competitions. The sort of coaching where teaching can come first, not swim team management and lane monitoring.

High school swimming is wonderful. Lets' support it and the place it plays in our swimmers lives. So is summer league. We should learn some from summer league...but we can't BE those things, we have to BE what we are…and what we ARE, should be professional coaching for those who want to seriously excel in our sport.

When we try to be all things to all people, we fail in being anything to anyone. USA Swimming Clubs should stand for the finest in coaching and Youth sport.

Need in Search of a Solution: Don't expect or want everyone to be a USA Swimming Club. Let some clubs do their own thing without the USA Swimming name attached. Make sure the use of the USA Swimming brand stands for something special. Make it special and desirable to own a USA Swimming Club. Make it the premier brand. Don't worry if other brands form. Some people buy Fords. Some buy Mercedes. Some ride bikes. Let people chose.

And the same is true within USA Swimming. Allow clubs some freedom in their operations, to be themselves. Again, "simultaneous Loose-Tight principles"….allow clubs latitude to operate differently (and tell us what they are doing, so we can all learn and benefit) within the framework of rigid adherence to the defined mission of USA Swimming.

This will allow the creative coach and volunteer leadership to grow and bloom.

Number Seven - Business and Coaching Skills Don't Always Mix

There are a number of coaches in American Swimming who are capable of world class coaching and world class business skills.

But they are few and far between. And heaven knows they are talented enough to not need much help from the rest of us. And most of the rest of us, can either coach real well, or we can run a business real well, but we can't do both real well, at least not for real long periods of time.

So Boards complain of poor organizational, communication and Financial skills of coaches and use that as an excuse to meddle in the operation of the swim club. (often with results that seem to improve things, at least short term.) Their complaints are often valid.

Many of our best coaches gravitate to college coaching. Why? No parent hassles like in club swimming, and no real need for elaborate business involvement or skills. Just Coach Baby. Or at least, that's the dream picture. College coaches will largely tell you that they discover that its not "really" true, but its true enough that I very RARELY see a college coach "go back" to being a club coach.

Need in Search of Solution? How do the pro teams do it? A General Manager runs the business of the club, top to bottom and delegates the Coaching to a Head Coach. Both business and sport sides are well looked after. We need that in our clubs.

The catch? Money. We have to pay two big salaries to operate this way. The solution…go re-read the learn to swim section above, or operate multiple facilities with unified leadership.

Number Eight - Accountability. We have none

Once you are a club member of USA Swimming, you are good to go forever. You won't receive much, but then we won't make many demands on you, either. Just pay your bill every year.

On our Boards, we have volunteers in key positions. Hard to fire volunteers, isn't it? Who'd do it? So we lack accountability there as well. In fact, since we're not real clear on what we're supposed to be producing, we don't have any measures to tell us if our club is "doing well", "doing poorly" or "not doing".

When we evaluate our coaches, we do it...how? From the calls we field here at ASCA, people "say" they want their coach to develop all the warm and fuzzies…you know, "help children to be better people" and all that... And coaches surely do achieve that, in many cases.

Problem is, we can't define it. Can't agree on how to measure it. So all we have is a "feeling" and one person's experiences and thus, "feelings" about that coach may be different from another's… So how DO we tend to evaluate our coaches? On odd things we "say" we don't care much about, like Junior Olympic titles won, national success, And how fast our own child swam and how well Suzie likes our coach. Wow. Scary. Imagine you…being evaluated like that...if you let it happen, you may deserve what you get.

And Don't Worry. Your club won't suffer if you do a lousy job. It will still be a USA Swimming Club. Conversely, if you do a GREAT job, how are you going to prove it? Against what criteria, what facts? Again, don't worry, because USA Swimming won't hold you accountable when it comes to rewards, either. You won't get much more if you do a great job for our organization. You're not going to be held accountable.

And after all, if you WERE accountable, and had the facts in hand to prove what sort of job you did do, you'd be secure in your job, you'd have the evidence of how worthy you are of a raise, and your club would have evidence of its value to USA Swimming. But then, they might expect USA Swimming to do something for them to reward their club.

Of course, if you weren't doing the job, you might be in jeopardy. And so might the franchise of your club. USA Swimming might decide to buy back the franchise and sell it to someone else who can have a better shot at doing the job as required. Gosh for a minute there I got carried away and forgot we're not a franchise system. The club next door to you can be as good or as lousy as it wants to be, and still be called a USA Swimming Club, JUST LIKE YOURS. Sorry.

Need in Search of a Solution? Be serious. Be accountable. Be good. Or be gone.

Next page > The importance of Club Swimming > Page 1, 2, 3, 4

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