USA Swimming Blogger X Day 5: Election Day

The final full day for everyone included a five hour session including officer reports, elections, legislation and concluded with the USA Swimming Banquet and naming of Swimmer of the Year. Budgetary constraints led to our LSCs planned early departure, leaving after the business meeting and missing the banquet.

Officer Reports

The day started off with a very appropriate playing of the national anthem, setting the stage for a monumental day in USA Swimming and the action to come. Several reports were given with the main focus prior to the elections and legislation being the State of Swimming report by Executive Director Chuck Wielgus. During which he reiterated many of the statistics we have heard in recent weeks regarding Child Protection and several other points.

1 out of every 3 girls are sexual abused and 1 out of 7 boys are by the age of 18.
USA Swimming is among the first to address Child Protection. Providing a litmus test for all other youth organizations.
The eminent expansion and advancement of our background checking system.
The plan for a comprehensive education system for all parent, athletes and non athlete members.
Establish policies and guidelines to better protect swimmers, helping avoid situations that will put them at risk.
A better means of reporting such occurrences, making it easier and more comfortable for the abused to come forward.

His report included dialog to help bolster the support of the Make a Splash initiative, to strive for the prevention of preventable drownings. He finished with a video presentation of the recent success of the National Team at Pan Pacs.

By the time you read this, the election results will have already been released. The election results were given during a break in legislation and several positions were enthusiastically applauded. The election of president Bruce Statton was greated by a hearty applause while Dave Berkoff, newly elected Technical Vice President, receiving the biggest applause of all officers appointed. The consensus of the delegates around me of the 400 plus in the room were excited at the prospect of someone with his passion for protection and knowledge of the sport, law, and coaching to be a very valuable asset in the task of better USA Swimming's current situation.

Legislation

We were making incredible progress through all of the issues pulled for discussion. Many of which were common sense decisions and wording corrections to better serve the intent of the policy. Prior to the Protection changes in legislation, two policies stuck out amongst others. The policy change to raise the minimum age of coaches to 18 was met with impassioned support and criticism. It is an understandable, USA Swimming cannot conduct background checks on minors. However, the supports of a lower age for assistant coaches (fifteen years) and "coach of record" at 18, were interested in the ability to foster opportunities for teens to start a career in coaching and offer a direct connection of your senior swimmers and your age group and developmental swimmers. In the end, the policy was approved to raise the age to 18 years and will go into effect in 2011, putting an end to underage coaching opportunities. The other was Mike Saltzstein's approved policy to take the power out of the hands of the executive director on their own when it comes to deciding a claim should go past the initial investigation. This is an important policy given the reported of an email denying further investigation by USA Swimming into Andy King.

http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/24420.asp?q=USA%20Swimming%20Ignored%20Andy%20King%20Sexual%20Abuse%20Complaint%20According%20to%20E-mail%20Documentation

The bulk of time was spent on R20A and R20B, combining to become R20 and Article 305, which is available on Swimmingworld.com. Many impassioned coaches spoke on several topics in regards to what swimmers should be protected under policy language (minors versus all athletes) and where such statements should be found (policies versus guidelines). Everyone in the room agreed to change being made, but were conflicted on where to draw the line between athlete protection and restricting a 'normal' life activities. In the heat of the battle, a delegate inspired the room with a personal account of their own traumatic abuse experience. Their willingness to share this combined with a request to protect children instead of nitpicking on wording of policy righted the ship and helped form the policies that we see today.

In an attempt to move forward the policies on protection and reporting, a delegate from the Midwestern LSC asked for a reporting system effective earlier in Article 306. Though not accounted in Article 306, USA Swimming's proposal was to have an anonymous reporting phone number and email in place with educational materials to be released later in 2011. Out going President Jim Wood spoke on behalf of the Committee on Athlete Protection to establish a call line and email service for reporting by November 1, 2010 as the delegate requested. According to legislation proposals, this service would not be available until after the start of the year, potentially September 1, 2011.

A sense of relief, excitement and apprehension filled in the air as the meeting was adjourned. Relief and excitement for all that the policies were put in place and USA Swimming is on its way to better protecting our future generations of swimmers. Apprehension that given the policies in place, that the measures taken by USA Swimming in the next year will be enough to combat this terrible epidemic in American and specifically our beloved sport. Only time will tell