Report from USAS Convention - Sports Medicine, Russell Mark, House of Delegates

Since my last post I have gotten to do a little more than just take the Athlete Protection Training (yeah! I passed!).  I got to attend a couple of interesting presentations and workshops....and the House of Delegates.

Yesterday morning I attended a Sports Medicine/Science workshop that centered on nutrition.  I am usually bored to tears at these kind of Q and A/panel discussions.  This one was actually filled with information that I found quite interesting.  The discussion focused on a couple of things

1. The importance of Iron in the diet.  I have known that red meat is the best source of "usable" iron. But I also learned that all Iron supplements are not the same.  I still don't know much about it, but I do know that there are a couple of choices that are better than others
• Solgar's - Gentle Iron
• NatureMade - ferrous sulfate
• First Endurance
• Centrum Performance
2. It is not a bad idea to have blood drawn once a year, during a general physical, and have an Iron profile performed.  Since it takes 6 weeks to 6 months to affect Iron levels in the blood, it is a good idea to track your baseline levels.
3. We all know the importance of staying hydrated and maintaining proper electrolyte balance, but you need to know whether you are a person who loses a lot of salt when you sweat.  Swimmers might not know this because they are in the water when they sweat.  It may be more important for some swimmers to replenish the sodium relative to other electrolytes.  Check the sodium content in sports drinks, and take note of the sodium levels.  Remember, that if the concentration of sodium is higher in a particular sports drink, that it will take longer to be absorbed.
4. Looking for some good sources for sports nutrition?  These were mentioned:
• Australian Institute for Sport
• NIH.gov
• scandp.org (if you are looking for good sports nutritionists)

I attended a presentation by Russell Mark in the afternoon.  Russell is a part of the National Team Staff and is an amazing analyst and source of information.  He has a knack for finding the common traits in the techniques of the top swimmers in the US and the world.  I love his analysis.  He presents things in a manner that is easy to understand.  He gives you the facts and supports it with the video that he uses to analyze each stroke/start/turn.  He is not guessing or creating hypotheses.  He is just presenting the results of his research.  If you are looking for specific statistics, numbers, analysis, he is your guy.  I am glad he is working for us at USA Swimming.

There are two parts of the House of Delegates meeting.  The first part is a recognition/awards presentation.  I will not regurgitate the list of honorees.  If you would like to know who was recognized, I recommend going to the USA Swimming website.  The second part the House of Delegates deals with legislation.  There was not much controversy and most of the legislation from legislation packet (see the USA Swimming website under Governance) was passed or rejected based according to the recommendations of the Rules and Regulations Committee.  I think the most significant legislation centered around bullying.  I encourage folks to read the legislation (as amended) once it is posted on the USA Swimming website.  I have a feeling that this year's meeting went much smoother than last year (when all of the Athlete Protection legislation came forward).

I am looking forward to attending the convention again next year in Greensboro, NC.  Gotta stay involved if I want to make a difference.

Report from USAS Convention - Make a Splash, Safety Education, OIOC, Athlete Protection

Just thought I would post an update on a few of the USAS meetings/presentations, from the last day or so, that I have gotten to attend here in Jacksonville.

I attended the Make a Splash workshop yesterday morning.  My club has it's own Learn to Swim program, and I have been working on the criteria to become a Make a Splash partner program.  After the workshop I am inspired to get it done!  In Alaska, we have a drowning rate that is over 3x the national average.  A lot of the drownings occur in the rural villages.  There were a couple of presentations by current Make a Splash partner programs...they got my creative juices going.  I really believe that there is a way for my club, through the Make a Splash program, to make an impact.  I will let you know how it goes.


One of the meetings I tried to sit through was the Safety Education Committee meeting.  I arrived as they were discussing the Meet Marshal duties and guidelines.  The committee was reviewing a card for the Meet Marshals to carry and check at meets click here to see the card.  I have to say, it was not a stimulating meeting and I had to leave due to the struggle I have with those kinds of meetings.


I headed down to the Olympic International Operations Committee (OIOC) meeting.  For me, it was a much more interesting meeting.  Some information I got from the meeting included:

• Steering has changed summer Nationals (including the US Open) to be a meet with only long course qualifying time standards.  Nationals will have a normal A and B final with a C final that is only for 18 & Under.  Jr Nationals will continue to have SCY and LCM standards.  These times are going to be faster.  Both meets are currently too large; expect time standard to get faster.
• Frank Busch, our new National Team Director, spoke about some incentive programs that would include Jr Nat winning teams, and individual event winners/coaches, getting to go to the OTC.  He spoke about coaches of National Jr Team members getting to spend a week with some of our legendary coaches (Reese, Marsh, etc).  I will be interested to see the formalization of these ideas.
• There will be an Olympic Trials "test event" in Omaha, at the trial pool, prior to Olympic Trials. The meet will be June 8th-10th.  It will not be a Grand Prix event, but the standards will be along those lines.

I went to the presentation, by the Athlete Protection Committee and Praesidium.  I just checked, and the Athlete Protection Training is online and available to take.  I plan on taking the compulsory training later today.  I will let you know what I think of it afterward.

If you are not in the Western Zone, you will probably want to skip this part, but there are some changes coming by 2013.  The Western Zone Championship will become a 14 and under meet with slightly relaxed time standards to help yield a similar number of participants that currently exist.  The 15 and over swimmers will be shift over to the, still very young, Western Zone Senior Championship. I have not been to the Senior meet, but I plan on taking athletes next summer.  My hope is that it becomes a 19 and under championship...I don't want it to turn into another Sectional Meet.

At the Coaches Meeting this morning, we had a couple of redundant reports from the OIOC, but there were a couple of topics that seemed to take up most of the conversation after the reports.

• Coaches Education - should it be mandatory?  It seemed as though it was about a 50/50 split on whether or not it should be.  I am against mandating continuing education at the USA Swimming level.  If I want to require my staff to continue education, I will require/provide it, but until USA Swimming starts writing my paycheck they should not be requiring that sort of thing.  On the other hand, I am in favor of encouraging education by offering some sort of recognition program.  Use the carrot, not the stick.
• Coaches Protection Program? - Praesidium has been throwing around the numbers stating that only 5% of abuse accusations are false.  It was brought up, that USA Swimming provides legal council for athletes, but not coaches.  Opinion at the meeting was that it should be fair and that USA Swimming should provide legal council for coaches as well.  The fact is that once the accusation has been made, the damage is done.  If exonerated, the price of council should not be an issue for a coach.  I believe a committee has been formed to address this issue.

I will continue to post information about the USA Swimming Convention and any meetings I attend.

Report from USAS Convention - Club Development and Athlete Protection

I got on the plane in Alaska yesterday at 4:30p (EST) and landed this morning in Jacksonville at around 10:30a.  I think I squeezed in an hour of sleep on the flight, but suffice it to say, I am bushed!  I missed out on a couple of meetings that I would like to have attended, but I did get to go to a couple of very interesting committee meetings.

The first meeting was the Club Development Committee, chaired by a coach I respect a ton, Allison Beebe.  We got to see some interesting numbers, presented by Tom Avischious of USA Swimming, concerning membership retention, composition, etc.  My engineering juices go into overdrive whenever I see tables of statistics like that.  The committee then delved into coach's education.  The Online Coach's education webinars that USA Swimming has are very good, and we were let in on some statistics about there use.  The webinars have been seen around 7500 times.  Two thirds of those are watched after they have been archived on the USA Swimming website.

Then the meeting got interesting.  Whether or not coach's education should be mandatory.  The peanut gallery really started to pipe up on this issue.  What do the reader's of this blog think?  Should coaches be required to take ongoing education classes?  Should it be encouraged, but not required...perhaps setting up a recognition system?  Should we leave it alone?  I am against mandating continuing education, but I am for setting up some sort of recognition system.  What do you think?  There are some LSC's that sponsor coaches education.  Many clubs support coaches education.  What situation are you in?

USA Swimming's Deck Pass was unveiled to the committee.  I have already written about how cool I think it will be once the iphone/android apps are up and running.

After the Club Development Committee was done with the room, the Athlete Protection Committee came in.  There are a couple of folks on this committee that I have a lot of respect for as well; Margaret Hoelzer and Mary Liston are both folks I have had the pleasure to work with before.  The Chair, Jim Crampton, also seems like he is a great guy.  The meeting started with a bit of a teaser from Praesidium, the folks who are providing the online Athlete Protection Training.  There will be a full presentation tomorrow, but I have to say, I think this is going to end up being a good program.  I put that last statement in bold, because I have been publicly skeptical, on this blog, since it's announcement.  I think we should have started with this before letting the lawyers get a hold of the whole process.  The only negative thing about the program is that I heard someone say it is free.  That is not true.  Our volunteers and coaches may not be paying Praesidium directly, but I am sure that we (USA Swimming) are paying a pretty penny to Praesidium.

Having said my nice stuff, I have to say I have some reservations about some things that are coming down the pike from the Athlete Protection Committee.  There is going to be a push to require an Athlete Protection Officer and Athlete Protection Committee on every LSC board.  There is going to be a requirement to have all new officials go through the same pre-employment screening that newly hired coaches are now required to have:

• Motor Vehicle Report
• Education Verification 
• Employment History Check/Reference Check

Furthermore, it is going to be recommended (code word for soon to be required) that new officials

• get fingerprinted
• go through a social media check
• go through a Google search check

As painful as this is going to be for small/remote clubs (like the ones on Alaska), I think these are going to become the law of the land.  I predict a major reduction in the number of volunteers coming out to officiate.  This will be devastating for clubs that are so isolated and small, that it takes a majority of their parents just to field an officials crew.  This does not even bring into account the expense of the program.  It looks like we are looking at an increase in splash fees in our LSC.  Someone has to pay for the background checks, pre-volunteer screens, etc.

Tomorrow will be chock full of excitement!  I will be sure to give you all the run down.  Stay tuned.

9/11 and the USAS Convention and Hope

Over the last two days I have found myself crying a couple of times...one time actually sobbing.  Each time it is as I have been listening to the radio, watching the TV, or reading an article.  Each time the subject is 9/11.

I traveled to the the United States Aquatics Sports convention, from Alaska, on 9/10/01.  The convention was in Detroit, and I was one of 4 Alaska Swimming delegates going to the meeting that year.  I was traveling alone, something that, at that point in my life, I had not done much of.  I was less than a year out my first marriage, and I was looking forward to spending some time with a close friend, in Chicago, after the convention.  As it turned out, I was the only Alaskan delegate to attend the convention that fall.

I was alone.

I got up that morning, left the hotel, and went for a jog before heading to the first meeting of the day.  I finished my run, hit the shower, and was sitting on the bed watching CNN when I learned that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane.  There was much confusion and debate over what kind of plane had struck the building and why.

The CNN anchor, Aaron Brown, was sitting on a building with the smoking building in the background.  I remember thinking things like "it must have been a little Cessna or some other small plane", "How could a pilot hit a building that big?", "He must have had a heart attack or something".  That was when I watched the 2nd plance strike.

I was scared.

I have a coping mechanism that I have developed at some point over my childhood.  I am somehow able to slow things down when things get hectic.  I manage to stay calm in the face of a threat.  I don't let fear prevent me from moving or carrying on.  It has served me well on countless occasions.  I got up from the hotel bed, got dressed and went down to the Senior Development Committee meeting.  I remember thinking that it was ridiculous to be holding a meeting about something as trivial as swimming when something so horrible was happening.  I then sat down in the peanut gallery and listened as the committee discussed their agenda.  In short I deflected my fear.

When the meeting was finished I went back to my room and turned on the TV.  I watched footage of the towers collapsing.  There was so much confusion about what was happening.  It was overwhelming.  It was still so early in Alaska, that there was really nobody for me to call.  I went for another run.

Aftern the run I learned of the plane strike on the Pentagon.  I knew we were under attack.  I learned of the FAA grounding all of the planes....and then I only remember bits and pieces of the rest of the convention and the rest of my trip.

• I remember getting two phone calls.  One from a friend, and one from ex-wife, each making sure I was ok.
• I remember calling my parents to let them know I was ok.
• I remember red, white, and blue ribbons being given out to everyone by the hotel staff.  
• I remember, two or three days after 9/11, a ceremony being held outside the hotel, in honor of the victims of the plane attacks.  I remember singing the national anthem during that ceremony, and I remember looking up during the anthem and seeing a comercial flight going overhead.  I remember fighting back tears at that moment.  
• I remember attending the general meeting and listening to the list of USA Swimming members who had passed since the last convention.  I remember collecting one of the flowers that represented those who had passed...so that I could give it to my friend...his father was one of those who had died since the last convention.
• I remember picking up my rental car and driving to Chicago.  I remember making it to my friend's house and being relieved that I was finally with someone who knew me and cared about me.
• I remember driving back to Detroit for my flight and thinking "Let someone just try to take down this jet."  I'll rip that person to shreds with my bare hands.  I remember checking in and walking through an empty airport.
• An then I remember being home.

On the eve of the 10th anniversary, I find myself pretty emotional.  I think part of it is sadness.  Sadness for those that were lost during the 9/11 attacks.  Even more sadness for those that lost loved ones during those attacks.

I have a bit of dread as I prepare for the convention.  It will be my first convention since 2001. There are a lot of issues that I plan on studying and discussing while at the convention.  Important issues, and I am not a politician.  I will have to be like one if I want to see any changes.

I think that thoughts of going to convention have dredged up emotions about 9/11.  Maybe that is why I have been losing it over the last couple of days.  Having said all this, I am hopeful.  Hopeful for my future, and the future of my family.  Hopeful for the future of USA Swimming.  Hopeful for our country.

Hope is stronger than loneliness.  Hope is stronger than fear.  Hope is stronger than dread.