Exercise Extreme Caution

In several posts recently I have discussed the imminent appointment of a Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager. The proposal is a good one. It offers the prospect of real progress throughout New Zealand swimming. But in welcoming the appointment I have also stressed the importance of the new position being kept separate from the normal legislative duties exercised by Swimming New Zealand. There must be a clear separation of powers between the responsibilities of assisting coaches, clubs and athletes to perform better and the management of a national swimming federation. They are very different duties and must be kept separate.

In New Zealand however there is a danger the two functions will not be kept separate. For example, we know that the Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager is going to report to the Swimming New Zealand CEO, Steve Johns. So already the separation of powers is being compromised. And if as a consequence the Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager simply becomes a missionary for Swimming New Zealand to extend its influence into the affairs of clubs, coaches and swimmers then there is a need to exercise extreme caution.

If the new Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager arrives at your club and you detect that he is selling a Swimming New Zealand package, politely ask him to leave. His job is to help your club be better at what your club does, the way your club does it. He is not there to turn your club into a clone of some Steve Johns and Bruce Cotterill manufactured image.

Because never forget this. The swim team run by Steve Johns and Bruce Cotterill bombed; went out of business; died.

There is no one who would go to Bernie Maddoff for advice on personal banking or Lance Armstrong for guidance on avoiding performance enhancing drugs. For the same reasons Swimming New Zealand is in no position to offer advice on the management of a swimming club or a coach’s program or an athlete’s career.

And that caution is especially true when you consider the advantages that the Steve Johns and Bruce Cotterill swim team had that no other club in the country can get anywhere near. They had access to huge government funding. They had unlimited pool space. They could poach the country’s best swimmers in a way that would see a normal club severely sanctioned. They had subsidised or free access to medical and other professional support. They could operate without charging coaching fees. And still they blew it.

With all those advantages the Swimming New Zealand swim team was a mess. Just imagine a New Zealand club that couldn’t keep a coach for more than a year, who came back from championships without winning an event and with PB percentages in single digits or every five minutes had swimmers leaving for Australia and, who through it all, bred an unearned and nauseous culture of elitism. No club would last five minutes in the real world. But the Steve Johns and Bruce Cotterill version ploughed on, living off its state sponsored socialist subsidy.

So no, if the new Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager comes to your club and is selling some Swimming New Zealand corporate package, tell him you are doing just fine thank you. His job is to make what you do, the way you want to do it, better; not to spread some failed Steve Johns and Bruce Cotterill philosophy. There are signs to look for. If the Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager bursts into corporate speak, that spells trouble. Too much talk of mission statements, corporate objectives and a holistic vision, then buy the guy lunch and send him back to Auckland. And if the words “you should be training smarter” or “you should stretch before warming up” come out of his mouth don’t even bother buying lunch, just ask him to leave.

And so a club’s attitude to this new appointment should be one of extreme caution. Has Swimming New Zealand observed a clear separation of powers? Is the new person merely an Auckland missionary? Or has he made contact to discuss what your club or coach does and the way you can improve? Is he there to make your swimmers and your club better? Or has he been instructed to go out and turn every club in the country into a mini Millennuim Institute. Because if that’s his brief we are in big trouble indeed. We will see.

We must hope that he is independent and wise enough to understand that the way swimming is approached at Team Aquabladz in New Plymouth might be vastly different from Capital in Wellington or Sun Devils in Hastings or Waterhole in Auckland or AquaGym in Christchurch. That does not mean that one of them is right or that one is wrong. There is always more than one way to be successful. The new Targeted Athlete & Coach Manager will hopefully understand that and will be there to assist Sun Devils be a better Sun Devils and Comet be a better Comet and Capital be a better Capital. That is what we need. I do hope that is what we get.

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