By David

Several years ago, the New Zealand Government decided to socialize elite sport. They did it through the power of the purse. They set up a government agency called the Hillary Commission (later re-mis-named SPARC). The government then funded the agency and immediately turned every Olympic sport in the nation into social welfare beneficiaries; adverse to risk, pen pushing bureaucrats who spent their time and the sport’s money preparing five year plans and mission statements.

Swimming took a lead from their SPARC masters and developed plans within the sport that increasingly centralized power. SPARC of course approved. They’d have done the same thing. The vehicle NZ Swimming used was the North Shore Swimming Club and their coach Jan Cameron, the ex-wife of Australia’s Don Talbot. Their model was an even more socialist version of the Australian Institute of Sport. And that’s what New Zealand has now. It is pretentiously called the Millennium Institute and absorbs the state’s funding at an alarming rate.

The reasons we don’t like it are;

It is counter to the prevailing free enterprise character of New Zealand society. It has nothing to offer the tough independence that made Hillary, Walker, Loader, Quax, Snell, Halberg albergHHand Dixon household names around the sporting world. Interestingly all those guys made their name before there was a SPARC.

The nation’s fortunes increasingly rely on the ability and success of one coach or, just as bad, one programme. Nothing that Cameron has ever done convinces us that she is a Talbot, Lydiard, Touretski or Schubert.

New Zealand’s results have been worse than when Loader, Simsic, Langrel, Moss, Kingsman and Hurring were breaking world records, winning Olympic medals and swimming in Olympic finals. Cameron’s had millions and she’s had time; too many millions and too much time.

If the state is going to fund the sport of swimming we believe the money should be applied to create a “free enterprise” environment in which any one of the nation’s coaches can become a “General Motors” of swimming. That is the function of government in a free enterprise society. Once a very close friend of Cameron’s, Arthur Lydiard, agreed with that view. It’s what he did in Finland and it worked.

This week we have had another chance to see the product of Cameron’s work. The New Zealand National Championships which also serve as the World Championship trials have been held at the Henderson Pool in Auckland. How did they get on?

Remember when you judge Cameron’s performance you cannot use the standard of a normal swim coach at a normal parent run pool. This person has directed the resources of a nation. This person convinced Swimming New Zealand and a fawning press that she would lead them to swimming’s promised land. In the best traditions of used car salesmen everywhere she sold New Zealand the dream of world class status. She’s been followed, applauded and funded. When you judge Cameron it is entirely appropriate to say, “You offered us the world. Our nation funded you. Did you deliver?”

At this point I want to jump ahead a week and tell you, “No, she didn’t, not by a long way.” I will explain the results shortly. What is important is to tell you about Cameron’s reaction. Was there an apology; any sign of remorse; any indication that millions had been spent on her direction and the results were only 39% of forecast? No there was none of that. Instead Cameron, faster than a rattlers strike, blamed the swimmers. Here is a slightly shortened version of the article; click through to read the entire piece.

New Zealand needs to ask itself is this the sort of leadership it wants? Is this what Hillary and Lydiard would have done? New Zealand is a fine little country with a proud sporting tradition, created by leaders who accepted responsibility when something went wrong. Cameron has sought to shovel blame on to those whose only mistake was to follow her over the Auckland Harbor Bridge.

Always be suspicious of coaches who use the excuses, “It’s the swimmers fault,” or “We didn’t do too well but the future is looking good.” The last four years have seen Swimming New Zealand perfect a thousand variations of both.

And so to the swimming; here’s what happened.

Prior to the trials Swimming New Zealand confidently predicted they had 18 swimmers ready for the World championship duty – in the event seven swimmers qualified. Of the seven, one was the British, ex-world record holder, Zoe Baker, who hardly owes any of her success to the Cameron plan. Another, Annabelle Carey lives half way down the South Island which in New Zealand is about as far as you can get from Cameron’s Millennium Institute.

Oh, Swimming New Zealand will still send 18 swimmers. They’ll make the numbers up with relays and sick notes. Don’t let that disguise the fact that only five products of the Cameron plan actually made the grade.

Of the seven who did qualify only Dean Kent and Moss Burmester would have made the Australian team. Kent would have been second in the 400 IM and Burmester first in the 200 butterfly. Kent has spent the last three months training with the British squad in Australia.

Of the seven who did qualify none would have won the US trial. Moss Burmester would have been second in the 200 butterfly and would be in the US team.

Eventually, the future is now. Only one New Zealander would have won an individual event in either the United States or Australian trials. Only two would have been fast enough to make the team in either of those countries. Is that a good enough return for the millions of tax dollars and years of unfettered trust placed in the Cameron plan? Swimwatch do not think so. The world class sport we were promised means you win things. Walker, Loader, Snell, Quax and Dixon went off to foreign lands and won races. Of course that was in the days before SPARC and Cameron. Perhaps that’s where we should go again.

And in case you don’t think New Zealand should do something about it, look deep inside and ask your self this. Will New Zealand win a race in Melbourne? If the answer is no or even I don’t think so, it’s time to change.

By David

In the most recent issue of the American Swim Coaches Association newsletter, the Executive Director, John Leonard discusses the organizational structure of swimming. He argues that LSCs based on geography are outdated and should be replaced with national interest groups. Small clubs should be grouped and organized with other small clubs, medium sized clubs with other medium clubs and “large multi-facility” programs linked to others with the same characteristics. We are told US swimming needs this “new solution.”

Before discussing this further I feel I need to explain that Swimwatch hold the ASCA in the highest regard. It is respected and important. Its qualifications and services are without peer in the swimming world. But this article is nonsense.

The case it puts is not helped by some awful writing. For example, the over use of capitals to convey emphasis. If you write well, words offer their own stress. A sentence that has capitals and an exclamation mark diminishes the quality of the entire piece. In the second paragraph we are told, “The cynic might quote the famous line, “Now we are clear, we have found the identity of the enemy and he is us.” This could well be a famous quote. It’s just that I’ve never heard of it. I’ve certainly heard of, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Leonard’s entire proposal is based on the hypothesis that clubs of a similar size have more interests in common than clubs located in the same area.

There is no evidence to support that view. For example, a club not far from us has a similar size and structure. But that’s about all we have in common. Their emphasis is on local high school swimming and local USS meets. Our focus is on national and international events. We have almost nothing in common. While we are structured on the basis of geography we can seek out other local clubs irrespective of size who have interests similar to ours and influence our LSC’s affairs accordingly.

Philosophy and purpose are not determined by size any more than they are by geography. By constructing some sort of apartheid barrier based on size, Leonard’s proposal would reduce our club’s ability to communicate with others with similar interests to our own.

The proposal is shockingly undemocratic. Inevitably the “mega-program” LSC would be seen as the best and most powerful; the medium and smaller LSCs as less important. The ability of the small and weak, no matter how just their cause, to influence national affairs would be reduced into oblivion.

South Florida high school swimming is based on the apartheid of size and it’s a shambles. In every event, Florida produces three state champions. There is no logic or reason for this. A central purpose of a championship series is to find a champion. We’d be far better finding the best regional champions, culminating in one state final; and all based on geography. I imagine the idea originally was that 3000+ schools should not compete with smaller schools; an idea somewhat similar to Leonard’s. But it hasn’t worked. Smaller schools frequently have programs that are the same or better than larger schools. The pity is they never get to meet in the same pool or at the same conference table.

To take Leonard’s proposal to its illogical conclusion, imagine the Olympics being structured according to size. Kenya would never get a seat at the big boy’s table. And yet what are their interests? Their runners can beat the hell out of anything we can offer. Because they are small does not mean their interests and aspirations are not just as large as ours. It’s a bit tough to expect their population or structure of government to reflect ours before they can sit at the same table.

Leonard’s proposal is the beginning of a slippery slope towards a three class society. It is a clear play aimed at making sure the haves keep what they’ve got and get more and making sure the have nots are kept in their place. The good thing about geography is it’s not man made and its devoid of social status; both good qualities to have in your organization.

It is not necessary to put forward the arguments in favor of maintaining a structure based on geography. All the arguments against the apartheid of size support a management structure based on geography. Geography seems to suit most of the elite sports played in this country; NBA and NFL to name two. If it’s good enough for Bill Parcells, it’s good enough for me.

Leonard may not have realized this, but because something’s old does not make it wrong. Elsewhere in this blog and in another context, Rhi Jeffrey is quote as saying, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” That pretty well summarizes our opinion of this proposal as well.

By Jane

Every now and then, you’ll see some typos on SwimWatch. We’ll have written “and” instead of “an” or “tow” instead of “two”, but we try very hard to eliminate errors from our work before it’s uploaded, and if we find a mistake after a post is live, we take the time to correct it.

This said, I find it very frustrating to read article after article where mistakes are just as common as commas. Take the sixth paragraph of this SwimNews article by Craig Lord:

Now, perhaps Lord will notice these mistakes and correct them, but I’ve noticed this kind of rushed, unedited work appear on SwimNews before. Often, the mistakes are never fixed. I know what it’s like to hurry through a blog post or article, publishing a piece that I’m passionate about quickly because I’m excited to see it hit the web.

When reading Lord’s pieces, however, I often get the sense that he is writing frantically, speeding through a subject on which he has a strong opinion. I may be wrong, but I do not believe that Lord reads his work before he sends it to his website, which happens to be one of the oldest and most popular swimming news sites around.

SwimWatch doesn’t pretend to be objective; however, SwimNews does. It is pitched as a journalistic venture, but nearly all of the posts are written by Lord and appear to be heavily influenced by his own prejudices and beliefs. For example, I get the distinct impression that Lord does not have much time for short-course swimming (many good short-course results are followed by reasons why the swimmer in question will now do well long-course). He has even less time for the American collegiate scene (the 2006 Women’s NCAA champs, featuring the likes of Mary DeScenza, Hayley Peirsol and Kara Lynn Joyce) garnered only results lists on SwimNews, while the coinciding Commonwealth Games were given over thirty entries.

I was at those NCAA championships, and I promise you that overall depth and standard of swimming was as high or higher in Athens, Georgia than it was in Melbourne, Australia that week. Yes, the Commonwealth Games had some amazing performances from people like Leisel Jones, but a competition like NCAAs deserved more than the three entries that it was afforded.

I still visit SwimNews regularly, as Lord has some great connections and writes about some interesting topics. However, I’d never go as far as to call SwimNews the web’s leading swimming site. To achieve that goal, the editorial staff needs to edit its work more carefully, and suspend their subjectivity far more than they do right now.

By David

This week US Swimming introduced “background screening” for all 10,000 swim coaches in the land. In the words of US Swimming:

“The screening criteria are designed to identify violations of Section 304.3.4 of our Code of Conduct. The National Board of Review will develop implementing rules to determine which violations will result in total ineligibility, probationary membership or other restrictions based on the severity of the crime. In order to maintain your 2007 USA Swimming coach membership in good standing, coaches are required to complete the new USA Swimming Background Screening process.”