By David

Somehow or another I have become a member of the New Zealand Swim Coaches and Teachers Association (NZSCTA). I remember filling out the forms but thought I had decided at the last minute not to pay the annual membership fee. However Neville Sutton arrived in Auckland for the Open Championships clasping my freshly printed membership card. I guess that means I’m a signed up party member. I do hope that fact is never used as evidence of my willingness to cozy-up with the establishment.

In the two months since my promotion the organization has held its Annual Conference. I didn’t go. I’m not a great conference fan – although many years ago I did talk at an NZSCTA conference about the distance Toni Jeffs swam in her aerobic build-up conditioning period. The highlight of that occasion was afterwards in the hotel bar. The CEO of Swimming New Zealand in those days was a little guy with a huge ego. He seemed intent on wanting to pick a fight with that bastard David Wright. Finally I made the mistake of arguing back. Next thing I knew the CEO of Swimming New Zealand grabbed my tie and demanded that we move outside to the car park where he would sort me out.

Now I’m not all that tall, about six foot, but this guy was a good six inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter. I’m also no great pugilist but would certainly rate my chances against this scrawny specimen. However in the circumstances, fighting seemed a poor option. I decided to laugh at him instead. This only made him more annoyed. Finally our fellow conference members convinced my assailant to let go of my tie and retreat to the other side of the room.

That conference was in Wellington. Risking injury in the same town again seemed like one peril too many so I stayed in Auckland tending to the needs of the West Auckland Aquatics swim team.

I guess most conferences have their good, bad and very ugly. The good in Wellington was easy to find. The Swimming New Zealand website reports that Judith Wright was made a life member of the association. Now that is an honor well deserved. For longer than I can remember Judith Wright has run a successful swimming business in West Auckland. She has succeeded in doing the most difficult commercial task of all – she has survived. But she has done far more than that. She has produced a string of very fine age group and senior swimming champions. She is tough. She is fair. She’s a bloody good business woman and an even better coach. Well done NZSCTA. That was a good decision.

And now for the bad. This is how it was reported on the Swimming New Zealand website.

A few Swimming New Zealand staff also presented at the conference. Performance Coach David Lyles, High Performance Director Luis Villanueva and High Performance Development Coach Donna Bouzaid all touching on topics of youth and age group development.

And in those two sentences you have witnessed all the deception and guile of the Swimming New Zealand enemy. Swimming New Zealand staff addressed a gathering of New Zealand’s best coaches and what did they talk about – just junior swimming.

Do you see clearly where they want us to be – what they want us to do and how they want us to coach? They want coaches from Invercargill to Kaitaia to concentrate on breeding swimmers for Swimming New Zealand to cherry pick for their precious Millennium Institute. None of them are going to discuss the preparation of elite swimmers with you or me. They are not going to debate the balance between aerobic and anaerobic conditioning in international swimmers. Why? Because, according to them, those topics are the exclusive domain of Swimming New Zealand. Swimming New Zealand used this conference to practice mushroom management – keep us in the dark and feed us shit. NZSCTA should never have let them get away with it.

And finally the very ugly. This is how the Swimming New Zealand website described their guest speakers.

Two international guest speakers highlighted the 2014 New Zealand Swim Coaches and Teachers Association (NZSCTA) conference held this week in Wellington. Dick Shoulberg (USA), who has coached a number of Olympians, spoke on topics from ‘yearly planning’ to ‘maximizing the space you have’. While Australian Julie Stevens discussed ‘what it takes to be an inspiring, engaging and unique teacher. Shoulberg also hosted a pool session that proved another highlight for attendees as he went through an individual medley short course session after speaking the day before on the value of individual medleys.”

The event that caught my attention was the Coach Shoulberg hosted pool session. There he was, one of America’s best swim coaches, telling a large group of young New Zealand coaches, enthusiastically absorbing every word, keen to hear what the best of the United States had to offer, determined to do well in their Bronze level examination.

As we all know, an individual medley begins with a dive into the butterfly length. Except, on this occasion, the NZSCTA guest speaker had to skip the dive portion of his demonstration, had to abandon the start. Why was that he was asked? Well, replied Coach Shoulberg, “Your pool is too shallow.”

Oh my God, if only he was aware of what he had just said. Here is a man, an expert; a coach of Olympic experience, imported by Swimming New Zealand to educate New Zealand’s latest batch of trainee coaches and what is his first definitive statement – the Kilbirnie Pool is too shallow for him to teach diving.

It’s about time Swimming New Zealand listened to Swimwatch. They should have paid attention to FINA rules long ago. And now their own guest speaker is telling them to behave. If championship events cannot be held without diving into the shallow end of the Kilbirnie Pool, those events must be held elsewhere.

Thank you Coach Shoulberg. Unwittingly, you may have made your most valuable contribution to swimming in this country. And NZSCTA, your conference may have achieved more than you ever dared imagine. We can only hope.