What’s with Peter Miskimmin and aliens. In January 2018 another foreigner, this time an Australian, was appointed to run High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ). His name is Michael Scott and he has just burst into print in the NZ Herald. Scott calls his article a report “on the state of sport in NZ”. If that is true, sport in New Zealand is in serious peril. There is not much point in reading this nonsense. But if you have ten minutes to waste here is the link. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=12146053

Talk about a waste of 700 words. This stuff is genuine rubbish. Weeks before the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games I saw Dame Valerie Adams and her coach working for hours, putting shot after shot out on the field behind the Millennium swimming pool. It is in scenes like that you will find the future of New Zealand sport. Currently sport in New Zealand rewards the author of this drivel seven times more than the world’s best shot putter. That’s right, for being a multiple Olympic Champion Adams is paid about $60,000. Scott is paid close to half a million.

You want to see abuse in New Zealand sport? Try those numbers for a start. Scott’s NZ Herald article says, “In response to the Heron Report, HPSNZ has drawn a line in the sand. There is absolutely no doubt we need to strike a better balance between winning on the world stage and the welfare of athletes. I believe athlete welfare can become New Zealand’s competitive advantage.”

Scott is the problem. He lives the lie. While he values himself seven times more than one of the best female athletes in the world he should back off lecturing us on the subject of athlete’s welfare. He represents a class of bureaucrat that has taken over sport in New Zealand and is rotting it from the head down. When his thirteen point plans include paying female champions a lot more than the self-important CEO of a government quango, his plans may have some merit. Until then Scott’s words mean nothing. Until then Scott is the personification of the abuse of Valerie Adams and every other athlete in the country.

Swimming is full of the same welfare abuse. How else would you describe New Zealand’s best swimmers struggling to find $5,300 to represent us at the World Championships while bureaucrats, Johns and Francis, swan around the world for free?

That is the substance of what’s wrong with Scott’s article. But the rest of his report tells us why Miskimmin employed the guy. It is full of meaningless jargon – just the sort of stuff that Miskimmin loves. Here are a few examples.

“New Zealand’s high performance system”. What is that? Is that John Walker up on the Waitakere Ranges on a cold wet Sunday morning? Is that Valerie Adams practicing the shot behind the Millennium Institute? Is it Eyad midway through 100x100s on 1.30? I have coached a lot of international athletes and doubt that any “high performance system” would have improved their life or their performance in any way.

This is all too much – “an athlete voice mechanism”? What does that mean? I suspect it’s words to justify Scott’s inflated salary. If he means listening to athlete’s worries, good coaches have been doing that since the Greek physician and trainer, Hippocrates, 400 years before Christ.

And then there is “our strategy and investment model”. Do these guys ever listen to themselves? I’ve been lucky enough to discuss sport with all sorts of world authorities. None of them resort to this BS. Can you imagine what Steve Hansen would make of a “strategy and investment model” for winning an All Black’s game?

And finally, “a re-examination of our pinnacle event debrief process”. Remind me to keep any athlete of mine away from this guy. Most of us spend our lives trying to make elite sport as easy as possible. This Australian creates confusion. I’ve always found, “How was that?” to be a perfectly adequate “pinnacle event debrief process”.

Talk about jargon. I have this mental picture of slightly overweight Australian grinning with delight at the wonder of the mind that produced this master thought. No wonder New Zealand takes the piss out of the IQ of our nearest penal colony.

Perhaps I was too quick to judge the IQ of Australians. This one must be very bright. He clearly understands what this means. He must do, he wrote it. If the purpose of words is to communicate meaning, I doubt that I am alone in not understanding most of his article. I suspect not one person in ten reading the NZ Herald understands much of what Scott is trying to say.

Didn’t I tell you Miskimmin was in on the joke? Perhaps that’s why he employs Australians. He enjoys the humour they bring to the job. Certainly he seems to be willing to accept the Australian’s invitation to a “reassessment of the business capability support”. No one in the room, except the Australian, will understand why they are there. But Amanda White is making coffee at 10.00 o’clock so all is well.

The abuse of the English language has occupied far too much of this article. The more important point is the devaluation of athletes in New Zealand. Currently the value placed on champion athletes is the most basic welfare abuse. And the key abusers are Miskimmin and Scott, followed closely by Johns and Francis. Their abuse of Adams, Perry, Godwin, Walsh and dozens of others is important and structural. It goes right to the heart of sport’s athlete’s welfare problems. It is the source of much of the coaching and administration abuse that follows. When New Zealand sport values an Olympic medallist seven times less that an Australian bureaucrat or an ex-club age-group coach that opens up an environment where all abuse can prosper.

New Zealand athletes are undervalued. Bad treatment is a product of that disrespect. Miskimmin, Scott Johns and Francis are the problem. They are the abuse that dominates New Zealand sport. Until that is fixed all Scott’s words are band-aids on a broken body. As I have said sport is rotting from the head down.