Via email, I receive the comments that are submitted to this site. I work on websites for a living, so it is easier for me to manage this site (publishing articles, etc) than for anyone else involved in the blog. I rarely write anything here. My name is Jane and I used to be a swimmer in New Zealand. I left in 2002 to swim at in the U.S. This morning, I read a comment from Jillian Wayne. Whilst far more fair than some vitriol I’ve read (much of which I’ve published), what you said hurt me, Jillian. Let me tell you why.

When I was fourteen, my family and I moved to Hawke’s Bay. We went there because my grandmother was ill. She suffered a stroke in late 1997–a stroke that no one at Napier Hospital thought she could possibly recover from–but in the autumn of 1998, she was at home again. My family went from Wellington to Napier.

I had been swimming for a few years, and my father David was my coach. When we went to Napier, I didn’t have any reason to change this arrangement, and so I started swimming at the SwimGym in Hastings. The staff were lovely and the gym was two blocks from Hastings Girls’ High School, where I was enrolled. However, despite the short walk to school and the friendly, accommodating staff, the pool there was only four lanes wide. The water was frequently rather warm and the air in the mornings bitingly cold, and often you couldn’t see the pace clock from the far end of the pool due to fog. When the Onekawa Aquatic Centre in Napier opened a new pool in 1999, I changed my primary swimming location and began training there. Aside from a few training partners, all of whom had just seen me swimming and asked to join in, I did this by myself.

The older pool at Onekawa was the domain of the Aquahawks swim team. They noticed my presence: the complex is not large, after all. One mother in particular took offense to my existing. Jillian, I can promise you that I didn’t start what happened next.

You “recall reading articles in a local newspaper about the disruptions.” I don’t suppose you knew what it was like to be me during that time, or what it was like to be one of my parents, or my coach, which is why I’m telling you this story.

During 1999, I got a bit better at swimming. I improved my 200 breaststroke time from 2:48 to 2:38. Hawke’s Bay Today wrote about how I’d done well at the Winter Nationals in Wanganui. Not long afterwards, my family and I learned that this particular woman had explained to assembled members at an Aquahawks’ club meeting that the reason I got press in the local paper was because I was sleeping with one of the photographers.

I was fifteen years old. Now, at twenty-six, I’m only on boyfriend number three, and a middle-aged journalist was not one of them. Nothing could have been further from the truth or more mortifying. Jillian, you say you’re a mother of two. Two swimmers. How upset would you be if you heard that a senior member of your local swimming fraternity was saying that one of your children was exchanging sexual favours for publicity?

To boot, this woman was, and maybe still is, an English teacher at Napier Girls’ High school. Thank the lord I went to Hastings Girls’! My highest School Certificate mark was 96%, in English, and I seriously doubt I’d have been so successful at Napier.

Not long after this, we were at Onekawa early one morning when my father noticed the same woman by the noticeboard at the entryway to the pool. She was tearing something off the board. When she was done, she left the complex. David walked to the noticeboard and saw–not to his surprise–that a photograph of me that had been attached to the noticeboard, was missing. He asked a member of the pool staff if she had seen what happened. The staff member said she hadn’t, but to check the rubbish bin outside the doors of the complex. My father did so, and found the photograph, scratched from frantic fingernails, screwed up in the bin. How would you feel if this was done to your child, or someone you cared for?

A middle aged high school teacher taking to the face of a teenager with her fingernails. Note that I had never spoken to this woman, and my parents must have exchanged about as many words with her as I had.

Some time later (I think it was the next year), I was finishing a Saturday afternoon training session when the pool received a call from my mum. She had had a visit from the Napier police. It had scared the hell out of her, as they’d begun their conversion by asking her if our car’s registration was indeed the vehicle that belonged to her, and “did she know where the car was.” A question like that from a police officer makes one think that the car has been found at the bottom of a ditch. My mum managed to say that the car should be at the Onekawa pools, as that’s where we were. And it was, only another member of the Aquahawks swim team–another parent–had called the Napier police and reported our car “abandoned” in the parking lot. There’s no doubt that he just wanted us put through the hassle of having the car towed away. Many people, including the man who reported it to the police, knew that the vehicle in question was our car. Now, the car wasn’t exactly a nice vehicle. We weren’t the wealthiest inhabitants of Hawke’s Bay, but the beater we drove around had to suffice. As angry as we were that this had happend, imagine also dealing with the humiliation that comes with the suggestion that your only car could easily pass for an abandoned wreck.

Jillian, we did nothing to these people. I didn’t try to stop their children from swimming. I didn’t attempt to have them disqualified from races or deprived of training space. Lies were told about me and my behaviour in order to do all of these things, including a few other completely made-up stories that I still find too embarrassing to repeat.

Jesus Christ, how easy would it have been to say “screw it.”

“Screw how hard this is. It’s too hard. I don’t know that I’m talented enough to get anything out of this anyway. I do okay, but I’m sixteen and there’s so much else I could be doing. This is too hard and all I have to do to stop the stories that I’m a whore, or that my family’s car is abandoned, is to give up.” There were people, however Jillian, who did everything they could for me because they were far from “self-absorbed”, as you call my father in your comment.

You have no idea how wrong that is. His frustration towards anything he sees as being not beneficial for swimming has nothing to do with him. Everything he’s fought for as a swimming coach was for us. It was for me, it was for Bekki Abernethy and Nichola Chellingworth and Joe Skuba and Rhi Jeffrey and Annie Myrvang and John Foster and Nicole Hutchins. It’s for Nikki and Jessica and Zane and the kids at West Auckand now. It was for the people he saw busting their arses every day. He wanted the best for me, but I got no special treatment because I am his daughter. I have seen him take swimmers into his home in Florida when their air conditioning broke down (a big deal in August in Palm Beach County). I’ve seen him drive to airports at all hours of the morning and night to pick swimmers up off of aeroplanes, open the pool at weird hours because someone needed to get a session in, and make all sorts of small, quiet sacrifices that go unnoticed on a daily basis for every person he’s ever coached. I think he does this because he learned his coaching principles from Arthur Lydiard, who did the same for athletes for over forty years. I wrote about my experience with this man, who was also called self-absorbed and cantankerous by many in New Zealand. He was also one of the most caring, generous people I ever knew. It’s a long article: I wrote it for a large project at university. But I suggest you read it, because this is where my father is coming from.

So you suggest that “people like David” are going to derail your children’s efforts. Jillian, if it weren’t for people like David, I would not be living in London. I would not have received a completely free university education, graduated with an A average and worked for two of the most successful companies in the search engine marketing / SEO software market, worldwide. I would not be making more money in pounds than I ever could have dreamed of in New Zealand dollars, after being the kid whose car looked as though it was abandoned outside the Onekawa Aquatic Centre and who was apparently sleeping her way around Hawke’s Bay journalism. There were other people–“people like David”–who ensured that I didn’t end up giving into the temptation to quit, ending up ten kilos overweight studying Home Ec at Otago. The principal of Hastings Girls’ was one of those people. I’ll never be able to thank Geraldine Travers enough for how much she helped me.

Let me repeat that if you didn’t quite get it, in a TL;DR: David has put massive amounts of effort into everyone he has coached who has shown that they want to work hard. Many of us who’ve swum with him would never have been as good as we were, simply because he cared about us so much, and he put us before himself all the time. I was never the most physically talented swimmer in the pool, and there is no way that a quiet spot on the Aquahawks team would have resulted in my being offered a four-year college scholarship in Washington State. And what an experience that is! The thrill of competing in Div I in the NCAA, especially their national championship, is unbelievable!

To me, Jillian, this is the opposite of being derailed. His willingness to work with me led directly to Seattle and London and a place far, far away from the parking lot of the Onekawa Aquatic Centre. I know of many other swimmers who will tell you the same thing: that he cared about them more than any other coach ever has. The downside to this–this caring too much–is that his intentions are frequently misunderstood and belittled by people like you.

I left Hawke’s Bay in August 2002 with few good memories of a place where I caught huge amounts of hurtful flak for four years. I don’t know why; my best guess is because I wanted to swim on my own, which whilst hurting no one, is a sin you don’t commit in a small town around small people.

Jillian, you say that “we might as well pack up our kick boards and send our teenagers off to the nearest rowing club”: let me tell you about the time I packed my kickboard and left. I kid you not: the lights of Seattle from the window seat of a 747 from Honolulu on August 30 were more than enough to confirm that I’d never go back. The only thing I have ever regretted about leaving that town is that I left the best coach I ever had. I likely could have been a faster swimmer by the age of twenty-two if David had still been my coach, even though I had excellent coaches in the US, but he and I also understood the need to use my ability as efficiently as possible for the greatest possible return in my adult life. A decision made entirely, 100%, for me, Jillian. Not for him.

Of course I am going to defend him; he’s my father. However, you struck a chord with me, who thanks whatever gods may be that she didn’t pack it all in one afternoon in 2000 when it really got to be too much. Not even David knows, until now, how I stood in the shallow end at Onekawa and had “I’m quitting” rolling around in my mouth. I’m not sure why I didn’t say it, but I am fairly sure that David’s positive influence was a big reason. I don’t expect you to understand or change your mind, as I am now not fifteen anymore, and am old enough to realise this rarely happens. In fact, I’ve spent long enough on the Internet to expect nothing but further cruelty, perhaps attacking my modest swimming achievements, questioning my ability to understand, or my integrity at large. That’s okay. In truth, I just hope you took the time to at least listen.

Regards,

Jane Copland

By David

Several days ago we promised to report on the Auckland meeting called by Swimming New Zealand to discuss Project Vanguard. Here is our report.

From a Swimwatch point of view the meeting began badly. In her opening remarks Cathy Hemsworth took a swipe at “swimming websites that spread misinformation”. Being as the Swimming New Zealand’s website and Swimwatch are the only two websites that I know of that even mention Project Vanguard and given that it was unlikely Hemsworth was having a crack at her source of income, I assume her misinformation remark was aimed at Swimwatch. I nervously waited for her explanation. What had we got so wrong? How had Swimwatch misled the nation? But there was nothing; just the accusation of misinformation.

Actually that was pretty representative of the evening. It was “a tale full of sound and fury; signifying nothing”. We were told it was time for change. Six reports had been produced that said Swimming New Zealand should reinvent itself. The Board and management of Swimming New Zealand were having difficulty doing their jobs; hidebound and restricted by an old, passed its use-by date constitution. And finally the threat; funding from SPARC and others was at risk unless the organization did things differently. Having waited in vain for an explanation of Swimwatch’s misdemeanors I thought I’d ask for examples of what the current Constitution had prevented the Board and management of Swimming New Zealand from doing. What were specific examples of events and initiatives Swimming New Zealand had missed out on because of its Constitution? How had the Constitution specifically prevented the CEO from doing his job? Out of date and old hat and everyone saying we’ve got the wrong Constitution were not sufficient. How specifically had the organization been affected? Just one example would do.

In addition to Project Vanguard’s front person, Cathy Hemsworth, I think the meeting was attended by three Swimming New Zealand Board members including the President. Unbelievably they were unable to tell the meeting of one single event that had been stopped by the current Constitution; nothing. Hemsworth made a gallant attempt to say State Insurance might have given the organization a larger sponsorship check if all Swimming New Zealand’s Regions had been forced to put State’s logo on their websites. Embarrassingly she then had to confess Swimming New Zealand had never asked the Regions for that sort of help. I didn’t think it was appropriate for her to use a sponsor’s support to justify what turned out to be a totally hypothetical argument. Sponsors usually don’t like their name being used in organizational politics.

I found the lack of any specific example of how Swimming New Zealand had been hurt by its current constitution to be quite stunning. Project Vanguard cost Swimming New Zealand $100,000 last year and is budgeted to cost a further $120,000 this year. The best part of a quarter of a million dollars is being spent to fix a problem that has no specific examples. Wow, that is unbelievable. It’s hard not to be led to the obvious conclusion; perhaps Swimming New Zealand’s problem is not its Constitution but its increasingly suspect management.

There were a few other contradictions. Most notable was the claim by Hemsworth that there was no preferred solution to Swimming New Zealand’s shortcomings. This did appear to strangely conflict with information given to the last Auckland Project Vanguard meeting and copied on the Swimming New Zealand website. The clear impression there was that the “club-centric” model was Swimming New Zealand’s preferred option. Perhaps Swimming New Zealand’s website was the source of all that misleading information after all. We were told that sometime before August 2011 Cathy Hemsworth would be back to present a preferred alternative that could be compared with the current Constitution. We could all then decide whether to take the option of darkness, the current Constitution, or enlightenment, whatever Swimming New Zealand decides is best.

Although Hemsworth went to great pains to point out that there were no preferred options Swimming New Zealand’s President did confess that his Board “would be disappointed” if we decided the status quo, the current Constitution, was just fine. Why would the Board be disappointed? We have no idea, especially as no one knew of any examples of the existing constitution preventing Swimming New Zealand’s progress.

In the past week we have read and re-read the current Constitution. We think it is a good document and should stay. It offers important protections against Wellington assuming unreasonable powers. Paid staff and others may be pushing for more power by claiming they can’t do their job within the current set of rules. Just about every bad ruler in human history has made the same claim. There is something that makes us uncomfortable about Swimming New Zealand’s rush to escape examination by the sport’s regions. I guess it boils down to a thing called trust. Would we buy a used car from Swimming New Zealand? Not bloody likely; at least not without first getting the Region’s approval.

I did learn one really interesting fact last night. Five or six of New Zealand’s regions have paid professional staff handling their affairs. Swimming New Zealand has made much of the fact that their new structure would involve paid regional staff. But, it seems, we already have a good number of paid regional staff. The only difference is Swimming New Zealand’s plan is for the staff to report to Wellington. The whole thing is not about responsibility at all. It’s just about power.

Swimming New Zealand continue their Project Vanguard meetings in other New Zealand towns this week. I hope the examination of their motives is as thorough as it was in Auckland. If it is possible, could someone push real hard to find out what specifically it is about the current constitution that prevents Swimming New Zealand moving forward? What specific imitative has been derailed by our current structure? If any of you get just one example that will be a 100% improvement on what we managed to find out in Auckland.

By David

Twenty years ago we formed a new swimming club that eventually became known as Erehwon. The linguistically talented among you will recognize the name as “nowhere” spelt backwards. Swimwatch has already covered the story of getting the Erehwon Club registered. We only had three swimmers and had to sign up my parents, my brothers, my wife’s family, Clark Kent and even Sammy Wright, our family cat, to get to Swimming New Zealand’s minimum membership number. It’s 50 now but, in 1990, I think we needed only 20 names. Our three swimmers were better than average though; Toni Jeffs, Nichola Chellingworth and Jane Copland. All three were New Zealand open champions, national representatives and medal winners in international meets.

Shortly after the Club was formed we sent off our entries for the New Zealand National Championship. A couple of days later a letter arrived from the local swimming center saying our entries could not be accepted because we had not filed a set of financial returns as required by Swimming New Zealand rules. Being as we were less than a month old, we were pretty sure the demand was just some administrator making life difficult. A well known lawyer sent a letter to the center explaining that our club had complied with the rules and threatened to make life difficult if the swimmers were not allowed to compete. Our entries were processed.

Since that episode I’ve been especially careful to make sure the Clubs I’ve worked for comply with the meet entry conditions. With this history, you can imagine my surprise today when I read the following note on the Psych Sheets for next week’s National Short Course Championships. Here is what the note on Swimming New Zealand’s website says.

“For the purpose of the programmes and psych sheet only, swimmers who are part of the High Performance Centre at the Millennium Institute in Auckland have been given a different club code. Including HPNSS (North Shore Swimming), HPCAP (Capital Swimming Club) and HPAQG (Aquagym). This is merely to make it easy to identify these swimmers and provide them and the program they are part of some recognition.”

What on God’s good earth is all that about? It seems to us that it’s about one rule for them and another for everyone else. National Championship entries are not an opportunity to indulge in a bit of self promotion for the Cameron High Performance program. The Swimming New Zealand Rules governing entry to this national event are very clear.

1. Regional Associations must submit entries for SNZ members. No club entries are permitted. Club entries and fees are to be submitted to their Regional Association.
2. A member may only be a competitive swimmer for one club at any one time.
3. “Member” means any person who is a member of a Club affiliated to SNZ.

We have no information from the Auckland or Wellington or Canterbury Regional Associations. However I don’t believe for a minute those organizations would collectively submit entries as HPNSS, or HPCAP or HPAQG. There are no clubs in their districts registered with those names. I believe Cameron or one of her subordinates sent the entries directly to Swimming New Zealand and ordered the domestics down there to submit the entries; to sign them up as High Performance members. Someone in Swimming New Zealand realized the organization’s constitution and regulations were being ridden roughshod over and added the Psych Sheet softener. They wouldn’t dare send the entries back to the swimmer’s home region to be processed properly. That would mean asking Jan Cameron to obey the rules all the rest of us have to live by. Better to ignore the organization’s constitution than run the risk of Cameron’s wrath.

Perhaps I’m just jealous. Why didn’t I think of entering Toni, Nichola and Jane as DSSEWN. For the linguistically challenged that’s “David’s Super Squad Erehwon”. That would have been a good idea. It would have made “it easy to identify these swimmers and provide them and the program they” were “part of some recognition.” Certainly next year I hope all New Zealand’s coaches get the same shot at self-promotion that Swimming New Zealand seem so keen to give Jan Cameron and her Millennium project. HPCAP, HPNSS and HPAQC aren’t registered teams, making their mention in the Psych Sheets (and presumably results) nothing more than advertising. Our sport shouldn’t have a place for self-congratulatory back-patting and self-promotion at the expense of its own rules.

We are confident any good sport’s lawyer would rule that the High Performance swimmers have been improperly entered and, if challenged, the swimmers would be disqualified. Athletes should not be put in that position by the organization they represent. Swimming New Zealand and Cameron appear to have demonstrated a woefully unacceptable level of care and concern. It may well be worth submitting a protest at the Mt. Manganui event just to avoid future swimmers being used as traveling billboards for Millennium egos. A protest may also go part way to teaching Swimming New Zealand and Jan Cameron that even they must be governed by the rule of law. Swimming New Zealand’s constitution applies to everyone; even to them.

More important than the rules that appear to have been broken by Swimming New Zealand, this episode is further clear evidence of why Project Vanguard must fail. If, as we suspect, Swimming New Zealand has accepted entries directly from High Performance coaches the organization cannot be trusted to observe its own rules. Swimming New Zealand certainly appears to have ignored them in this case. No wonder they want to deal with small clubs directly. There would be no one strong enough to control them. This sport needs a layer of independent regions to keep Swimming New Zealand’s Wellington office on the straight and narrow. Over and over again Swimming New Zealand demonstrates they are unable to control themselves. While that’s true we should preserve a structure of strong regions that will do it for them.

By David

On Monday next week Swimming New Zealand arrive in Auckland to explain and sell their Project Vanguard dream. In Swimwatch we have argued Swimming New Zealand has an obligation to explain what the regions are doing so badly that they require the intervention of Wellington. However, before Swimming New Zealand explains the region’s shortcomings they need to convince us that their closer involvement would be an improvement. Would things be better or would it simply be a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire?

The only evidence we have of Swimming New Zealand’s competence to meddle in the affairs of the regions is to look at the job they’ve done of managing their own business over the past twenty years. If Wellington has sprung from one glittering success to another then the regions and their clubs may be inclined to share in that good fortune. If, however Wellington has struggled to keep their own house in order; if they have performed worse than the regions they are setting out to replace, then the current federal system may be best left alone. So how good is Swimming New Zealand’s current performance? How have they managed their affairs over the past twenty years? Are they any good?

The money side of things doesn’t look too healthy. Six years ago in 2004 the business of Swimming New Zealand was worth $479,953. Today it’s worth $326,586. That’s a drop in value of $153,367; a cool 32%. The business today is worth only two thirds of its value six years ago. Creating sustainable business value is a fundamental financial measure of business competence. To lose a third of the organization’s financial worth is not a good sign. Every swimming region would be best to keep well away from the management that came up with that set of figures.

But, we can hear Wellington say, what about cash in the bank? And sure enough, in 2010 there is quite a healthy cash balance – over a million dollars, $1,018,609. That sounds quite good until you consider two other facts. Twenty years ago, in 1990, Swimming New Zealand had, in 2010 dollar value, cash reserves of $1,219,913. So, even the cash reserves are down 16.5%. The big and disappointing difference is not only that the organization has less money. The distressing fact is how those reserves were earned. The 2010 million dollars was primarily the result of a two million dollar SPARC handout; government welfare. The 1990 reserves were the product of prudent management accumulating reserves from earned fee income over many years. The message of Swimming New Zealand’s cash is that they’ve got $201,304 less and most of what they have got, they didn’t earn. Regions that have accumulated cash from all sorts of local fundraising raffles, sausage sizzles and hard work would do well to avoid the example of Wellington’s cash management.

What about membership? The problem with membership is that Wellington bureaucrats will claim that the number of members is not their problem. The regions are responsible for attracting members and Wellington simply accepts what they are given. That claim would be duplicitous. Swimming New Zealand’s website is quite clear on the point. It says, “Let’s aim to make everyone taking part in Swimming New Zealand’s Education courses feel they are part of a respected, successful program. Value effort. Make sure everyone knows Swimming New Zealand is the organization making the opportunity real.” So it seems pretty clear that Swimming New Zealand is claiming a leading role in attracting members to the sport. How have they done? Well, in 1990 there were 24,000 members registered members in Swimming New Zealand. Twenty years later there are 22,202. That’s a drop in membership of 1,798 or 7.5%. In the same twenty years New Zealand’s population has grown from 3,410,400 to 4,385,143. That means swimming’s share of the New Zealand population has dropped, not by 7.5%, but by 28.6%. It would be difficult to see that as any sort of growth. If Swimming New Zealand is the “organization making the opportunity real” it clearly hasn’t been real enough.

And finally to the measure of most interest to Swimwatch, the performance of the country’s best swimmers at the Olympic Games. There is no way Swimming New Zealand can escape responsibility for the sport’s international results. In the last decade Swimming New Zealand has grown its power and control over the nation’s elite program. Today the Wellington office owns the performance of New Zealand’s best swimmers, lock, stock and barrel. And during their tenure New Zealand swimmers have won nothing at an Olympic Games. Swimwatch have said many times that appalling result is not the fault of the athletes. They have followed their master’s instructions to the letter. Many of them have been and are capable of winning Olympic medals. It hasn’t happened because the Jan Cameron led Swimming New Zealand program does not work. The last time New Zealand won an Olympic medal was in 1996 when Duncan Laing and Danyon Loader did their thing in Dunedin. Before that Moss and Kingsman prepared in Auckland and the United States to win bronze medals in the 1988 Games in Seoul. Since then Cameron’s Swimming New Zealand program has had millions of taxpayers’ dollars. The most recent Annual Report is a little confusing on the point but in the past twelve months Cameron’s largesse may have cost us all about $2,000,000 (Athlete Coach Support $K720, Team Payments $K473, High Performance Other $K468, PM Scholarships $K298). And our performance from two medals in Seoul and two in Atlanta has dropped to zero. I guess that’s a negative return of 100%; not something New Zealand’s regions should want to own.

The score card of Wellington’s performance does not make happy reading. The value of the business is down 32%, cash reserves are down 16.5%, membership is down 28.6% and results are down 100% to zero. It may be worth asking Swimming New Zealand’s traveling ambassador on Monday night how that performance justifies any closer involvement by Wellington in the region’s affairs. Swimming New Zealand say they will provide better “more modern management”. The evidence does not support that view. We have a federal system of management that protects strong regional powers and rights. It would be best to stay with what we know.