USA Swimming and the Art of the Defensive Reaction

Its a situation familiar to anyone- you have a disagreement with somebody, something unfortunate happens and their or your reaction is defensive. The first time I can truly remember doing it myself was in the 4th grade.

That was the first year I had to do homework. I didn't want to. My teacher obviously disagreed. When she chastised my lack of effort, I struck back. In a written letter, I lay blame almost entirely on her poor teaching. I was wrong, of course, but it felt very right at the time. Writing that letter did absolutely nothing to address the reason for our conflict- that I wasn't doing my homework.

In the last year, USA Swimming and swim coaches in general have come under increasing fire as evidence mounted that their were child predators in the midst and USA Swimming wasn't doing enough to find and stop them. The reaction to this evidence has been overwhelmingly defensive- tantamount to the letter I wrote my 4th grade teacher. They have sought to silence the dissent within their own organization. Chuck Wielgus, the executive director of USA Swimming, laid the blame on the victims for not reporting crimes in an interview with ESPN. They have looked for excuses to avoid investigating the claims made my Olympian Deena Deerdurff Schmidt. The list goes on but I will stop here.

Why is our natural instinct as human beings to react so defensively to anyone disagreeing with us or pointing out our faults? In 2008, Stanford University professors Carol Dweck and David Nussbaum investigated why people chose defensiveness over remediation (intending to change to improve the problem). They theorized that a defensive reaction is all about self-esteem repair.

Take me in the 4th grade as an example. My self-esteem told me I was a good student. Then I was confronted with something completely contrary to that: I wasn't doing homework and my grades were suffering. I sought to repair my self-esteem by shifting blame. Blame shifting is just one of more common methods used in a defensive reaction.

Another common method described by Dweck and Nussbaum is "[comparison]...with relatively worse off others". USA Swimming has used this strategy heavily- in fact the first point Wielgus made in his April 11th letter to USA Swimming members was as follows:

"This is a societal issue. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that by the age of 18, one in four girls and one in six boys have been sexually molested. This amounts to approximately 39M victims in the U.S. alone"

The implication is that USA Swimming's child molestation victims only make up a small percentage of the total population of victims. What a relief!

Wielgus and his administrations self-esteem is that they are good people who would never do anything to hurt their members. They have seen the media reports in recent months as a direct attack on their self-esteem. And instead of doing what is needed to solve the problem- engaging in the sort of common sense solutions that have been suggested for over a decade, they engage the problem defensively to preserve their own self esteem. And it appears for now that USA Swimming is getting a free pass from their  most prominent members- the athletes and coaches at the highest level. Why? Because its in their self-interest not to speak up; USA Swimming has made them far richer than the average coach or athlete.

To contrast, lets look at a situation where the most prominent voices of USA Swimming had their self-esteem as world beating coaches and athletes threatened by bodysuits. How did they react? If you don't remember, here are some quotes:

Bob Bowman on July 28th, 2009 to the AP: "I'm done with this. It has to be implemented immediately. The sport is in shambles right now and they better do something or they're going to lose their guy who fills these seats. That would be my recommendation to him, to not swim internationally — he might swim locally. But who knows. The mess needs to be stopped right now. This can't go on any further"

Mark Schubert, April 27th, 2009 to the Chicago Tribune: "It's totally out of control,'' "Now we're into speedboat driving.'' "But the saddest thing is we no longer are able to compare generations. Swimming should be about the swimmer, not the suit"

John Leonard, on swimmingcoach.org, Summer 2009: The answer is no, the suit debacle is the most important thing that any of us can attend to. It preserves the heart and soul of our sport....which is reverence and appreciation for the hard work, attention to detail, courage and teamwork required to be a fine competitive swimmer and to learn to succeed with those life-skills. Instead of with your Daddy’s wallet."

Janet Evans July 30th, 2009 to the AP: "The fact that FINA can do this is making a mockery of these times and these swimmers...It doesn't put the athletes first, and that's the most important thing at the end of the day."

And yet now, when a situation of infinitely more grave importance is at hand, we are greeted by silence by the most powerful voices in our sport, except for words like this from John Leonard, who in response to Wielgus' letter wrote:

"The ASCA Completely Supports the Comments Made by USA-Swimming Executive Director Chuck Wielgus in this article" (www.swimmingcoach.org)

Or how about two quotes from Aaron Peirsol:

"My experience in the sport has been nothing but spectacular...I hope it's isolated" (Aaron Peirsol to the AP concerning the scandal)

Contrast that with what he says on his own website profile www.racefortheoceans.com:

"Aaron's greatest fear is that he'll look back years from now and wonder if he could have done more to protect our oceans"

Phelps chimes in via the AP:

"Swimming has been such an important part of my life. I've been able to meet some of the most important and influential people ever in my life. I'm thankful to have this sport and have these people as a part of my life"

Natalie Coughlin (AP):

"It's not like we're harbouring predators or anything like that"

Rebecca Soni (AP):

"It definitely is bad for the image of the sport"

Bowman, on regulating coach to swimmer interaction (AP):

"I don't know that you can have a hard-and-fast rule to meet every circumstance"

Finally, David Marsh constructs a straw man (AP):

"We're going to implement a program where we ask the swimmers and parents to call us 'Coach Such and Such' or 'Mr. Such and Such.' That will separate some of the casualness"

Where is the rage now? These are our children and we can't summon 1% of the anger we had over a bodysuit? The time is nigh to throw egos aside and do what is right. Garrett Weber-Gale did just that when he told the AP:

"My parents never left my sister and I at the pool by ourselves with the coach. You don't really know who these coaches are, and you're going to leave your kids there alone for two of three hours? They're just kids. Anything could be going on"

USA Swimming must immediately implement the child protection measures suggested by Mike Saltzstein, Tony Austin, and anybody else with common sense:

1. All youth‐adult interactions, must comply with the rule of two leadership standard.x No exceptions, no excuses, and effective immediately.

2. Good faith and reasonable suspicion reporting as a condition of membership. Commercial email and voice compliance reporting systems are numerous. Implement a system within the week.

3. Any USA Swimming staff member involved in failing to report, or involved in any failure to report or "lost", "misplaced" or "excessively delayed" investigation, be dealt with through personnel action and, when appropriate, terminated. Implement policy within 10 days.

4. If determined that any Swimming Hall of Fame Inductee engaged in prohibited conduct, call on the Hall to remove the offender.

5. Without specific recognized training or certification, physical manipulation, massages and rub downs are not an acceptable coaching activity xi, and may never occur in a one‐on‐one scenario xii

6. Implement & enforce a real Protection Program. Youth is the focus, but any reported sexual harassment, threat of retaliation, or unaccepted touching must lead to discipline. Require youth protection training. Internet access easily provides quality education

We can't afford to wait another day.