2009 Convention- USA Swimming President's Address

Good evening everyone,

What a great year for USA Swimming!

USA Swimming membership increased by over 11 % this year, with almost 30,000 new swimmers joining our programs.

Wandering through Central Park early last winter, I came upon a group of inner city street performers. All of them breakdancing in Michael Phelps jerseys.

Earlier this week, prime time TV included Michael Phelps racing Shaquille O'Neal in "Shaq Vs." and Cullen Jones talking on HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" about the importance of teaching inner-city, minority kids how to swim.

And then later this week, Natalie Coughlin Hall competes on "Dancing with the Stars."

USA Swimming is hitting Prime time. 

The USA Swimming Foundation has received approximately $11 million in funds and pledges since last year’s convention. The two major donors were Carolyn Dirks on behalf of the Joseph B. Gould Foundation and ConocoPhilips, led by its CEO, Jim Mulva.  Chuck Wielgus was instrumental in securing these donations and Chuck along with Chris LaBianco, the Foundation Board and the Foundation staff secured several other major and mid-range donations and pledges. Some of these funds are unrestricted gifts while others are designated for certain programs including Make A Splash and the National Team.

At the end of this summer, the Make a Splash initiative, in partnership with the YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs, Parks and Recreation departments and local partners, provided swim lessons to over 142,000 young people. Many at no cost to the participants.

Pat Hogan, Kim O’Shea, Erin Greene, Rowdy Gaines, Mel Stewart and John Cruzat from staff, along with Olympic gold medalist Cullen Jones have been the day-to-day spokespeople for Make A Splash, and are primarily responsible for the operations of this program.

The Foundation began an initiative last year to look for sources of government funding to help Make a Splash programs. Chris LaBianco, Pat Hogan and Cullen Jones led this charge. They have met with numerous Senators and Congressmen in Washington and with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and have achieved some very promising results. This week, The House passed by voice vote, with 101 co-signers, HR 57 which was a resolution recognizing the magnitude of the drowning crisis in this country, encouraging the teaching of young people to swim and singling out the USA Swimming Foundation’s efforts in the area -- a small but very positive first step.

Our relationships with other organizations NCAA, U.S. Olympic Committee, YMCA, NISCA, ASCA, ISHOF,LEN (the League of European nations) have never been better and continue to get stronger every day.

In November we met with the leadership from LEN in New York City to discuss items of interest to both groups -- future Duel in the Pool possibilities, swimsuits and several other topics. This small meeting went very far towards solidifying cooperation between our two organizations. Saturday evening, Mike Unger, Matt Farrell and I took out Laszlo Sakadati, Secretary General of LEN, for a culinary tour of New York City in Famous Fat Dave’s white checker cab. I believe that the Coney Island hot dog or the Elvis Presley fried pickle sealed the deal.

 In January of 2009, a group of people from YMCA of the USA led by Jim Weaton, director of national programs and Jim Ryan, USA Swimming Board of Directors representative from the YMCA, met with USA Swimming representatives Chuck Wielgus, Matt Farrell, Pat Hogan, Sue Anderson, Pat Lundsford, Bruce Stratton and myself for a Summit meeting in Colorado Springs to discuss potential collaberation between our two organizations which would help us to reach our goals of teaching every child in America how to swim.

Several weeks ago, under the leadership of Bruce Stratton and Jim Everett, we completed the first series of lessons under this program, teaching 300 young people how to swim at the Caldwell YMCA in Boise, Idaho.

John Leonard and ASCA have been a constant support for USA Swimming over this past year. They have been incredibly active in creating coaches' training clinics throughout the world especially in under developed swimming nations. Their additional work this past year in helping with the swimsuit issue was invaluable. They were a true partner in every sense of the word.

Wayne Burrow from the NCAA did an outstanding job as the Head of Swimming for the FISU games this past summer. On a sad note, Dr Myles Brand, the President of the NCAA, passed away two days ago. He was a true friend of the Olympic sports and Swimming in particular. He was one of those educators who just “got it.” His leadership will truly be missed.

Swimming World, led by Brent Reutmiller, continues to be a leader in bringing the daily news of swimming to the world. In 2009, Swimming World celebrated 50 years of publication, keeping all of us abreast of what is happening in our sport.

We are going back to Omaha for Olympic Trials in 2012. Chuck Wielgus, Mike Unger and the Omaha Sports Commission did a great job in making this happen. Our dates were a few days earlier than in 2008 and that created a conflict with the NCAA baseball finals. After months of working out details, all the groups involved were able to compromise and come up with some creative ideas to allow the Olympic Trials to return to Omaha for an even better Trials experience in 2012.

We began a new communication tool this year called the President’s Corner. I would personally like to thanks Jamie Olsen for her initial idea on this project and for her endless help in making sure it gets done every two months.

I would like to thank very much the U.S. Aquatic Sports Convention Coordinating Committee for their tireless work this week and the months leading up to this convention. Ellaine Cox, Audrey Burklid, Bob Brown, Helen Brown, Margaret D’Onofrio, Penny Taylor, Deb Turner, Paul Windrath, Mary Beth Windrath and Gay Wright, thank you.

Lots of things happened in Rome this summer.

There was a swim meet, and for the 53^rd-straight year, USA Swimming emerged as the number 1 swimming nation in the world. Under incredibly trying conditions our coaches, staff, officials and especially our athletes did a tremendous job. Our team leaders Mark Schubert and Lindsay Mintenko, our head coaches Bob Bowman and Sean Hutchison and our head open water coach Catherine Vogt were outstanding – Congratulations.

FINA named the new members of its committees and commissions in Rome, and I would like to congratulate the following members of USA Swimming who were named to these positions:

Dale Neuburger – Vice President, FINA – Bureau Liaison to the Technical Swimming Committee

Carol Zaleski – Chair -Techincal Swimming Committee

Dr. Jim Miller – Sports Medicine Committee

Aaron Piersol – Athletes' Commission

Steve Munatones - Technical Open Water Swimming Committee

Mark Schubert – Honorary Secretary, Coaches Commission

Rich Young – Legal Commission

Greg Eggert – Press Commission

Dr. Larry Bowers – Doping Control Review Board

I would also like to thank the following people, who have served on FINA committees for the past four years or more.

Janet Evans – Athlete Commission

John Leonard – Coaches Commission – who has also added his voice as a consultant to the current Coaches Committee, giving us two strong voices on that committee

Ron Van Pool – FINA Disciplinary Panel

Sid Cassidy – Chair Techincal Open Water Swimming Committee

 And finally the FINA Congress.

In 1994 in Rome, I attended my first FINA Congress as a delegate with Jerry Olson. Democracy was not very familiar to the participants in that room and the Congress basically rubber-stamped legislation put in front of them that was supported by the Bureau. Legislation proposed and supported by the U.S. had even less chance of approval as we found out several years later in Perth, Australia, where legislation proposed by the USA was defeated by a vote of approximately 190-to-2. The two votes were Jerry Olson and I. Just taking a guess on the 190 number, but it was everyone else but us.

On numerous occasions this past year we publically and privately, through phone calls, emails and in person asked the leadership of FINA to take action on the suits prior to the Congress in Rome. No one wanted it to come down to that. Bottom line, FINA basically approved nearly every swimsuit for use in Rome. They promised everyone they would take action after the Congress. We couldn’t take the chance that they would act correctly or decisively.

USA Swimming had proposed legislation back in November concerning swimsuits and we amended it on the floor of the Congress in Rome. Our proposal passed by an overwhelming margin. The countries of the world united to pass legislation that was important to return integrity and fairness to our sport. I am not sure that I ever thought this could happen. There are a number of people that were instrumental in this happening and I would like to mention a few of them;

John Leonard - not enough can be said for the work he did on this issue. He was a constant reminder to FINA and the world that what was happening was wrong and was hurting our sport. Anytime something comes up that hurts swimming - whether it is suits, doping issues or any number of other issues - John Leonard and ASCA have stood up and fought alongside the athletes and coaches.

Craig Lord, a writer for the Times of London and Swimnews.com kept the suit issue front page and consistently asked FINA to take action.

Chuck Wielgus and Mike Unger, who had numerous communications with the FINA leadership, including face-to-face meetings to try and get them to move forward on the issue.

Greg Eggert and John Wilson, co-chairs of the International Relations Committee who helped craft the strategy for the Rome Congress and helped make sure that the right people were on the ground.

Mark Schubert for his great work in unifying the coaches of the world so we could all go forward together on the same page and for his plea at the FINA Congress for the countries of the world to support our proposal.

Dale Neuburger for his efforts with the FINA Bureau to try and get this taken care of before the Congress. We trust that Dale and the FINA Bureau will preserve the will of the Congress in their future meetings.

Bob Bowman and Michael Phelps for speaking out at the championships against the suits and for returning the sport to the athletes.

Fernando Canales, Rich Foster, Ron Van Pool, Carol Zaleski, Sid Cassidy, Trent Staley, Peter Daland and all those mentioned above for their great work lining up the support and votes for our motion while on the ground in Rome.

And finally, to many of our friends throughout the world who understood the damage the suits were doing to our athletes and our sport and who were willing to support our efforts, despite their role as some of our fiercest competitors in the pool.

This was truly a team effort and all involved should be congratulated and deserve our thanks.

As you see these folks during the week, please stop and say thanks to them for a job well done.

I would like to thank two friends of mine who are not here this week. I will always remember that we are here for the athletes and that athlete-centered competition is what we strive for. These two coaches stood for that all of their careers. Thank you Richard [Quick] and Jimi [Flowers].

 I would like to thank the entire Board of Directors and the staff for their help everyday in making USA Swimming the most successful NGB in the world

Finally, I would like to thank each of you; without your passion, expertise and hard work, USA Swimming would not be the finest National Governing Body in the world. Your contributions are not only appreciated by me, but by the thousands of athletes you serve every day.

Tags: Chuck Wielgus, USA Swimming