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.

Moving way too fast, Jumping through the fire

NLSC - Gold - on the road
SCY


1 x 300 on 5:00 rev IM DKS REC


2 x 5 x 100 on 1:30 progressive free to back EN1


6x {1 x 125 on 1:45 back EN3
     {1 x 100 on 1:45 back EN1


20 x 50 DK/FK w/fins EN2
alt :50/:45/:50/:40

1x{4 x 100 Free on 1:25 EN2; 1 x 100 Free on 1:10 EN3

   {3 x 100 Free on 1:25 EN2; 2 x 100 Free on 1:10 EN3

   {2 x 100 Free on 1:25 EN2; 3 x 100 Free on 1:10 EN3

   {1 x 100 Free on 1:25 EN2; 4 x 100 Free on 1:10 EN3
if you want, you can do the 100's Free on the 1:10 as Back on the 1:15


5 x 50 CH REC on 1:00  REC

...he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.

EHS - Varsity - PM
SCY

Equipment - fins, kb, paddles

4x{3 x 100 CH on 1:30 EN1

    {3 x 25 Sprint Medley on :30 SP3

3 x 200 flutter kick w/fins on 3:05 EN1

2 x 300 back or IM on 4:20 EN2

2 x 200 flutter kick w/fins on 3:05 EN1

1 x 300 back or IM on 4:20 EN2

1 x 200 flutter kick w/fins on 3:05 EN1

3x{3 x 50 FAST on 1:30 SP2

    {2 x 50 scull w/paddles on 1:30 EN1

15 x 25 on 1:00 EN2+

MOP work on turns

for fly,back,free at least 5 DK off each wall.

5,100 yards

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.

He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing....

EHS - Varsity - PM

SCY

Equipment - none

10 x {1 x 75 SKS on 1:30  EN1

        {1 x 75 KSK on 1:30  EN2

9 x 25 Sprint Medley on :50  SP3

3 x 3 x 75 on 2:30  EN1-SP1

1st round Free, 2nd round Stroke, 3rd round Fly, Back, Breast

within each set of three:

#1 - 25 fisted, 25 MDPS, 25 Sprint

#2 - 25 fisted, 50 Sprint

#3 - 75 Sprint

100 CH EZ

3 x 500 Broken in the following way:

• 100 smooth and strong on 1:20  EN2+
• 200 build on 2:50  EN2-EN3+
• 4 x 50 BPA 
• round # 1 50’s on :50
• round # 2 50’s on :55
• round # 3 50’s on 1:00

5 x 50 CH REC on 1:00

Start Time:

3 x 25 Dive Start SprintPractice Relays for Saturday

For Sam, Eddie and Clinton (start after 500’s) :

5 x 200 IM to Back progressive on 2:45  EN2#1 is all IM, then add a 50 Back from the 50 Free forward on each subsequent 200 [this will mean doing two of the 50 Fly, 150 Back][Eddie & Clinton can do this set on the 3:00 if necessary]

Turn Time at Coach Paula’s discretion

Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?

EHS - Varsity - PM
SCY

Equipment - fins, kb, cp, snorkels

12 x 50 Sw/K on 1:00  EN1

4 x 300 on 4:30  EN2
back, rotate 100 IM through the first 3
4th is all IM

6 x {2 x 100 FK w/fins on 1:30  EN2
     {1 x 75 Free Sw w/fins on 2:30  SP1

15 x 100 Free w/snorkels and cp on 1:40  EN1
work on dps and a "quiet" stroke
this should be a soothing set

Turn Time:

9 x 25 Sprint Medley MOPS on 1:00

Start Time:

3 x 25 Dive Start Sprints

100  CH REC

Oh the swimanity!

EHS - Varsity - PM
SCY

Equipment - fins, kb

Team Meeting at 2:30p in water by 2:40p

• Kenai Trip - get paperwork in
• Team photo next Tuesday

12 x 100 FK on 1:40  EN1
w/fins

10 x 25 Fly on :30  EN2

3 x {1 x 500 BOSS on 7:30  EN2-EN3
      {1 x 200 BOSS on 3:30  EN2-EN3

10 x 25 Fly on :30  EN2

20 x 50 on :50 EN1
Free/Back, Back, Back/Brst
work DK's and breakouts on Back
work timing on Breast DK on pull-down

10 x 25 MOPS on 1:00  SP3