For some reason the Chairman of Swimming New Zealand, Bruce Cotterill, sent me an email tonight. The email promotes a book Cotterill has written. I wanted to do my bit for sales by publishing the news on Swimwatch. The book is called “The Best Leaders Don’t Shout”. At Swimming New Zealand Cotterill has made every effort to put that maxim into effect. The membership has never heard Cotterill shout. They seldom hear him talk at all. In fact he is so wedded to the cause of silence that we haven’t heard anything from him since December 2016. Even then he didn’t address the membership but spoke instead to NZ Herald reporter, Andrew Alderson.

I have never understood why Cotterill was surprised and disappointed at the funding decision. The performance results, the financial results and the membership numbers have all declined. How else did he expect High Performance Sport New Zealand would react? But of more concern was the implied promise to tell the membership the “rationale” for the funding cut. That simply has not happened and now we know why. It is because “The Best Leaders Don’t Shout”. If Cotterill is the example they don’t say anything at all. Instead they feed the members manure and keep them in the dark. It’s a millennium concept called mushroom management.

What else does the Bruce Cotterill email say? Here is a shortened version of the introduction.

Does Bruce Cotterill have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? The table below shows the changes in Swimming New Zealand’s key performance indicators between 2011 and 2017.

Now remember what Bruce Cotterill’s book says, “I like to say that you need to be 20% better every year, just to maintain your position in the market.” By an amazing coincidence the average of those Swimming New Zealand performance figures is 20% for the period or 3.3% per year. Cotterill got the total number right. It’s just that in swimming it is 20% worse not 20% better.

Clearly the book is not off to a good start. More a matter of do what I say, not what I do. But make no mistake I am not saying Cotterill has no personal subject experience. The email goes on to tell me, “The book has a comprehensive commentary on the impact of change in our businesses, and lots of ideas on how to lead and facilitate change through your organisation.”

After six years at Swimming New Zealand I doubt there is anyone more experienced in organisational change than Bruce Cotterill. In that time Swimming New Zealand must have lead New Zealand in staff turnover. There have been three General Managers and five interim or “full-time” Head Coaches. And after the most recent American abandoned ship, instead of a “worldwide” search for a replacement they promoted an Intern and employed Gary Francis to do what none of us, including Cotterill probably, are sure what. They have vowed a rock solid commitment to their ridiculous centralised training program. But six months ago that was thrown overboard to be replaced by —- oh sorry we don’t know what yet, but it has something to do with Gary Francis. If that change is an example of Cotterill’s expertise his book should be hilarious.

Swimming New Zealand’s Annual Reports provide further insight into Cotterill’s up-close and personal contact with change. Here are some quotes from the Chairman.

I am sure you get the point. In every report something or someone is being terminated, someone is resigning, income is being reduced or results have been affected by injury and illness. Swimming New Zealand is about as stable as a rowboat in a North Atlantic storm. Cotterill certainly has intimate knowledge of change – and none of it is good.

His email concludes by telling me that “The Best Leaders Don’t Shout” hits the shops in a couple of weeks. You can pre-order your copy now.” But I think I’ll wait for a bit. In a week I should be able to pick it up for $0.75 on a table outside the Glen Eden bookstore. But I might get another Superman comic instead.

Almost certainly Swimwatch has spent too many words discussing the legacy of Jan Cameron. The last thing she seems to be able to do is rest in peace. This therefore will be the last Swimwatch post on the subject. And this post is only exists because of the following Facebook news item.

A funeral in Australia followed by a memorial service in New Zealand; that is incredible. Two celebrations 1200 miles and four days apart I’ve seen many more low-key state funerals than that. Prime Ministers, Presidents, even Kings and Queens usually have their passing recognised in one service. How Jan’s resume justifies two state occasions, because that is the impression, is beyond my understanding.

It seems like the Lady Di effect all over again. The deification of Saint Jan. Her death has provided an army of sports fans, most of whom never met Jan, the opportunity to elevate her reputation and polish her resume way beyond anything justified by her performance. She was a good coach, but that is all. Her record does not compare with the likes of George Haines, Mark Schubert, Duncan Laing, Doc Councilman, Gregg Troy, Don Talbot, Forbes Carlile and Fabrice Pellerin. Between them those coaches guided swimmers to more than 50 Olympic Gold Medals. Arthur Lydiard coached five Olympic medals out of the same Auckland suburb. In her time in New Zealand, and with an investment of millions of state dollars, Jan had none. But she now has something none of them will or could achieve – two international funerals.

Which brings me to the main point of this post. Ignore the rest of the world; even in New Zealand there is a list of good swimming coaches whose contribution matched that of Jan Cameron. Three in particular stand out Clive Rushton, Duncan Laing and Lincoln Hurring. These men were farewell without pomp and ceremony, without bugles and drums in simple ceremonies in Indonesia, Dunedin and Auckland. In comparison Jan’s elevation to sainthood is unfair hypocrisy.

Clive Rushton was New Zealand’s Director of Coaching. Quiet, thoughtful and inclusive, he brought sincerity to the sport in New Zealand. Jan and Clive clashed because their personalities clashed. One was aggressively demanding. The other was the opposite of that. But that in no way diminished the contribution of Rushton. I was coaching good swimmers all through the era of Rushton and Cameron. The quiet Englishman certainly taught me more about the sport. Jan taught me nothing. But that is hardly a surprise. Her goals were never global. They never included me or people like me. They were personal. How did it benefit Jan was what mattered.

Duncan Laing taught New Zealand that winners can be made in New Zealand swimming pools; and not just with Danyon Loader. You didn’t need a university degree or Sport New Zealand’s money. With intelligent honesty and hard work you could take on the world and you could win. He taught us all to stick to the basics, to do the simple things well. Duncan Laing provided us with the greatest gift of all; the belief that success from a New Zealand swimming pool was possible. To New Zealand swimming Duncan Laing was what Roger Bannister was to world running and Edmund Hillary was to climbing mountains. He made the impossible, possible. And that was something Jan never achieved.

And finally Lincoln Hurring built a hugely successful swim program in Auckland long before the arrival of Jan Cameron. In 1975 Lincoln Hurring began coaching at the Takapuna Municipal Pool and built a successful swim school. Jan liked to create the impression that she alone achieved the miracle of popular swimming on Auckland’s North Shore. But the seeds of her success were sown; the area was introduced to good swimming, years before by Lincoln Hurring. I’ve spent a few very late nights sitting debating swimming matters with Lincoln Hurring. There was no sharper mind or colourful, larger than life personality. Every minute was fun and hugely educational. Several times I have finally fallen asleep at 4.00am happy that my swimmers would benefit in two hour’s time from what I had just learned from Lincoln Hurring.

And so I am not convinced that Jan Cameron’s elevation to swim coaching sainthood with two memorials on both sides of the Tasman Sea is appropriate or deserved. Her record and participation were unnecessarily aggressive and self-centred. And second the unearned admiration, bordering on adulation, reflects poorly on some New Zealand swim coaching giants who deserve to see the sun of recognition well before Jan Cameron’s state eulogy.

 The British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli is normally credited with being the author of the quote, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Had he been around in the 21^st century I am confident he would have said, ““There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and stuff you read on the internet.”

A classic example has been the effort to sanitize the career of ex-New Zealand Head Swimming Coach, Jan Cameron. Even television news participated in that deception. But the Facebook page, NZSwim, has been particularly sycophantic. I doubt that the author ever met Jan Cameron and certainly was not involved in swimming during the period she monopolised the sport in New Zealand. Mind you a lack of knowledge has never worried the author of NZSwim. With five minutes experience he happily tells the swimming world exactly where they are going wrong.

Recently he offered to close his website down. He said “shall I simply shut this page down and leave you all to it?” On behalf of a grateful nation I accepted the offer. But I notice he hasn’t delivered his side of the bargain: another item of fake news.

He did however go part way. The most delightful update coming out of NZSwim recently was the decision to close its public page. Anyone wanting to read their trivial nonsense now has to apply and be approved as a member of their private page club. You would have to pay me a lot of money to join that club. In the meantime I am delighted that the public internet is spared his verbal garbage.

For example, NZSwim galloped to the defence of Jan Cameron. In reply to the SwimVortex and Swimwatch reports on Jan’s death NZ Swim said:

How much knowledge NZSwim has to come to these conclusions I have no idea. I suspect, no knowledge at all, is the most likely answer.

Swimwatch posts have already made mention of the poor performance of New Zealand swim teams in the Jan Cameron era. Jan was in charge of New Zealand Swimming for three Olympic Games (2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing) and three Commonwealth Games (2002 Manchester, 2006 Melbourne and 2010 Delhi).

The Beijing Games ranks seventh on the NZ swimming results table. The Athens and Sydney Games each rank thirteenth equal. At the Commonwealth Games, Melbourne ranks ninth, Delhi ranks eleventh and Manchester ranks fourteenth equal in the results medal table.

And so on the basis of results the SwimVortex and Swimwatch reports are accurate. But results were only one of the problems. Of just as much concern was what Sport New Zealand’s Ineson Report called, “the culture of fear; where no athlete would speak on the record for fear of reprisal”.

NZSwim can be as servile as it likes now but, in the Jan years, that culture of fear in New Zealand swimming was pervasive and nasty.

Swimwatch has also already mentioned the sick decision made by Jan at the Manchester Commonwealth Games to exclude swimmers not in her personal training squad from national team meetings. Being ostracised from the national team for training in the “wrong” squad is no way to run a national swim team. But Jan Cameron did that. Ironically the only two swimmers who won medals at the Manchester Games, Toni Jeffs and Liz Van Welie were two of those that Jan left out in the cold. Jon Winter, who now runs one of the country’s most inclusive squads in Raumati, was another swimmer excluded.

I coached three swimmers who swam on New Zealand teams in the Jan era; Toni Jeffs, Nichola Chellingworth and Jane Copland. Before they left New Zealand I would call Duncan Laing and arrange for him to be their coach. I made it clear that Jan was to have nothing to do with the swimmer’s preparation. Duncan was in charge. They were protected from the corrosive team culture of the time.

NZ Swim appears to be unaware that in the Jan era swimming, led by three-time Olympian Helen Norfolk, was one of the most active arms of the New Zealand Athletes Federation. It is not without good reason that athletes combine into a trade union. In that period Jan Cameron was the good reason.

But when Jan left New Zealand it appears she took her bad habits with her. I received the following text message this morning from Australia. I have deleted some identifying portions of the text only to protect the author from any remnants of Jan’s Australian version of the culture of fear.

And so, when NZSwim jumps into some cause or another, they would do well to check first with those who actually lived through the nightmare. Perhaps that would go some way to curbing their torrent of ill-informed rubbish. Or better still; do us all a favour, by following through on their promise to close NZ Swim completely.

My pool in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

The self-destruction that goes on in Saudi Arabia is truly remarkable. They bomb Yemen mainly because the people there worship the same God but choose to do it in a slightly different way. They encourage the USA and Israel to join them in destroying Iran for the same reason. They open one movie theatre and tell the world it is a glowing example of liberal freedom. They are about to allow women to drive and announce the fact as though they are active participants in the “Me Too” movement. Permission for women to be spectators at a football match is publicised as the ultimate step in gender rights.

Meanwhile of course no Saudi women can swim in their public pools. They certainly cannot compete in a Saudi swim meet. I was stunned to see women’s changing rooms and toilets in their three German supplied Olympic pools. The only thing missing was women.

The self-destructive rules that govern Saudi society are a wonder to behold. One in particular pisses me off just now. In three months the Asia Games will take place in Indonesia. They will run from 18 August to 2 September. There is a full six day swim meet in the 8,630 seat Jakarta Gelora Bung Karno Sports Complex. The reason I am acutely aware of the event is because for the year I was coaching in Saudi Arabia the Asian Games were the centre of their competitive universe.

“We have to do well in the Asian Games,” I was told.

I was ordered to prepare a plan that got swimmers ready for Jakarta in 2018. So I did that. I was confident I had two swimmers, Loai and Eyad, who could be ready to perform well. There was a problem with Eyad. He was born in Syria. No matter what the reward, Saudis object to anyone not born inside Saudi Arabia representing the country. God knows why they are so precious about a massive expanse of hostile sand; just another example of blowing themselves up.

However there was a slim chance that, along with women driving cars, Eyad might be allowed some of the freedoms accepted as normal in the rest of the world. My plan was approved and we began to prepare.

And then the royal family had a fight. The swimming prince was overthrown and a new swimming prince took his place. The New Zealand born CEO was hopeless; over-paid and paralysed, he did nothing. While all that was going on none of us got paid for three months. Eventually the pay was sorted. However the Asian Games plans, approved by the previous regime, were discarded. Clearly that had nothing to do with their benefit to sport in the Kingdom. They had been initiated by the previous prince. They had to go. As I say, yet another self-inflicted bomb.

In this case the destruction was total. I completed my contract and caught the first Emirate’s flight back to Auckland. Eyad decided he’d seen enough Saudi and Syrian terrorism. A month later he caught the same flight and applied to Immigration New Zealand for refugee status. And Loai simply recognised the futility of the fight and moved on to something else.

Eyad is now happily settled in New Zealand. He is teaching for the Millennium Swim School and is preparing for the Open Championships beginning in Auckland on the 2 July. His first competition will be in the Golden Homes Swim Fest this coming weekend. We will see how he gets on. His training is going well. In the thirty weeks since he arrived in New Zealand he has swum 1423 kilometres. His training times have improved. A set of 20×100 that used to average 1.07 is now being swim in 1.01. How that converts into his racing times we are about to find out.

In the meantime what is happening in Saudi Arabia? We know they lost Loai and Eyad. But what did they gain. That’s an easy question. The answer is nothing. They have a few young swimmers who will fly to Jakarta as experience for the next Games in 2022. And in 2022 they will take another group of young Saudis to the Asian Games as preparation for 2026. Failure, it seems, is a learned habit and the Saudis have learned it well.

I guess I shouldn’t care. Loai is happy. Eyad is swimming well. Who cares what’s happening in a Saudi desert? No one really, not even me – except that I still feel slightly frustrated about two things.

First, I dislike the feeling of a job half done. The fact I’m still helping Eyad softens my frustration but the Asian Games are about to begin and Loai and Eyad are not going to be there.

And second, the magnitude of the Saudi waste is annoying. They have the best pools; there is an office block full of admin staff; they are given more money than you could wave a stick at and nothing to show for it. It goes to show the futility of trying to buy success. If other things are not in place all the money in the world is not going to help – especially when your sport is permanently strapped into a high explosive suicide vest.

It seems some New Zealanders have features in common with the White House horror show. For example I read that Jackson Cropp had this to say about the reporting of Jan Cameron’s death.

The following comment was posted in reply to Cropp’s sage piece of enlightenment.

Wow, Crop must only be about twenty-three years old. His opinions on a free press are however better suited to someone three times that age. How do you get to your early twenties and believe already that the media are “increasingly biased” and wonder if we would be better off without them.

Clearly Cropp has no idea what a world without a free press would be like. If he did he wouldn’t wonder something as clearly imbecilic as whether we would be better off without them. His knowledge of the meaning of media bias is equally wanting. Being critical of some aspects of Jan Cameron’s performance does not make an article horrendous or biased.

To justify that position Cropp has an obligation to explain why the article is wrong. What lies did it tell? Just shouting names is not sufficient – especially when he was only 15 or 16 years old when Jan left New Zealand.

He wasn’t old enough to hear from New Zealand swimmers excluded from Manchester Commonwealth Games team meetings because they weren’t coached by Jan Cameron. Being ostracised from the national team for swimming in the “wrong” squad – now that really is bias. But Cropp, Jan Cameron did that. Ironically the only two swimmers who won medals at that Games were two of those that Jan left out in the cold.

Cropp has probably never read the Ineson Report that lead to Jan leaving Swimming New Zealand. He wouldn’t know about the report’s condemning conclusions. And so for the benefit of his education here is how the NZ Herald reported on Jan’s performance. Mind you, in Cropp’s world the NZ Herald is probably biased and something we could all do without. I have highlighted in bold the most damning paragraph. It sure looks to me like the criticism in SwimVortex and Swimwatch was very gentle compared to the reality of the time.

And the reply to Cropp claiming that the SwimVortex report is unfair only further demonstrates the ignorance of the author. He knows nothing of the distress that affected swimming at that time. I don’t know what he was doing between 2000 and 2010. Whatever it was, it certainly did not involve competitive swimming. There is nothing worse than those with extremely little knowledge passing themselves off as experts. I am delighted to see that he seems to understand his deficiencies. Why else would he conclude by asking the question “shall I simply shut this page down and leave you all to it?”

Thank you for the offer – we gratefully accept.