USA Swimming publishes response to letters from ASCA and Coaches Advisory Council

Two days after SwimSwam reported that USA Swimming's Coaches Advisory Council (CAC) and the American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) wrote separate letters to USA Swimming's board of directors calling for changes in the organization's leadership, USA Swimming responded with a letter to members.

The letters sent by the Coaches Advisory Council and ASCA are separate but address similar themes, including a lack of confidence in USA Swimming's leadership to address challenges facing the sport in several areas, including membership numbers, turnover and vacancies on USA Swimming's staff, stakeholder engagement and the implementation of SWIMS.

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USA Swimming's response, also available on its website, addresses several of the concerns in specific sections. Acknowledging the letters from CAC and ASCA, USA Swimming wrote that it “hopes to provide insight in response… we continue to work diligently to listen to the voices of all members and consider constructive criticism… However, we would like to correct some inaccuracies so that we can move forward with the same factual basis.”

Membership fees and “The threat from the AAU”

One of the main concerns raised by both the CAC and ASCA was membership numbers. The ASCA called on leadership to be accountable for the membership decline, and the CAC raised the issue of teams leaving USA Swimming for AAU. In its letter, USA Swimming responded to concerns about declining membership numbers by releasing a membership chart for the period from 2005 to 2024. The new cycle has only just begun, and USA Swimming already releasing 2024 membership numbers is in sharp contrast to waiting as long as possible to release the numbers for the 2022 decline.

Diagram from USA Swimming's letter to members

According to these figures, USA Swimming's membership peaked in 2017 with 421,200 registrations. Tim Hinchey was hired as CEO of USA Swimming this year and began work in September. Registrations declined year after year from 2017 until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when there was a sharp decline in membership. Numbers rose again to 396.2k in 2022 and are projected to be 379.8k in 2024, a slight increase from 2023, when registrations declined 4.6%.

As the graph shows, USA Swimming has seen an increase in membership in the years following the Olympics since 2008. In its letter, it describes the membership increase from 2023 to 2024 as “the first time since 2012 that we have seen an increase in athlete membership in a non-Olympic year.”

But one can also conclude from this chart that USA Swimming has had its lowest membership numbers since 2012 for the last two years (except in years with a global pandemic).

Although USA Swimming devoted a subsection of its letter to the “threat posed by the AAU,” the letter gives the impression of being calm about the matter. “Just as the success of other countries in international competitions only drives us to go even faster, the presence of new competitors should be viewed by USA Swimming as an opportunity to find out how these offerings resonate with our members,” the letter states. The AAU has not confirmed its official registration numbers to SwimSwam.

USA Swimming also saw a decline in its net worth in 2022, according to its most recently released tax filings. Net worth fell from $39,250,078 to $21,583,773, a 45% loss from the previous year.

Staff turnover and international success

In response to CAC and ASCA's concerns about staff turnover, new hires and vacancies, USA Swimming wrote: “At the Board meeting in the first quarter of each year, the CEO is required to present important or material personnel decisions in a public meeting. The Board approves this report at that meeting, where discussion or questions are welcome. Following the meeting and approval of the report by the Board, the report is publicly available on USA Swimming's website as part of the Board meeting minutes.”

Remarkable, Chief Operating Officer Sarah Ferguson was promoted last month along with two other people who appear to be central to the organization, and not after the annual board meeting in the first quarter.

The most glaring vacancy is that of junior national team director, which is not addressed in USA Swimming's letter. That position has been vacant for most of Hinchey's tenure at the helm of USA Swimming. The post was vacant from the start of the COVID pandemic, when Mitch Dalton joined the Texas women's program, until March 2022, when Erik Posegay filled the spot. Since Posegay joined the Texas staff this offseason, the position remains vacant.

The ASCA letter states: “We need an experienced and accomplished coach to lead our national team, and we also need an outstanding, credible coaching leader for the Junior National Team. The Olympics on home soil will demand our best, and we believe an athlete-centered, coach-led approach will enable USA Swimming to perform at its best.”

Since 2017 Lindsay Mintenko has held the role of 'General Manager of the National Team' rather than 'Director of the National Team'. The role has changed from a coaching position to a more administrative and coordinating position.

In its claim about the importance of the Junior National Team Director in the lead-up to the 2028 Olympics on home soil, the ASCA letter indirectly mentions the U.S. team's performance at the 2024 Olympics. According to USA Swimming's letter, the 2024 U.S. Olympic team achieved all of its set goals: “winning a gold medal, winning an overall medal, and achieving the overall medal goal set by the USOPC in its High Performance Plan.”

The USA topped the medal table with a gold medal ahead of Australia and led the overall medal count. However, that was not the conclusion that many took from Paris, as it is clear that the rest of the world is catching up with the United States. The American men remained without an individual gold medal until the final individual event of the competition, when Bobby Finke set a world record in the 1500 m freestyle. The other gold medal for the men's team came with the 4×100 m freestyle relay at the opening of the competition.

Stakeholders who are not athletes

In response to the CAC's described feeling that USA Swimming is not listening to stakeholders outside of athletes, USA Swimming pointed to the results of a survey conducted earlier this year in which the majority of coaches responded that they were at least “somewhat satisfied” with USA Swimming. USA Swimming wrote that they will release another survey in the fall.

As shown in the February survey results, the SWIMS 3.0 database released in 2022 was a source of frustration for coaches. This was reiterated in the CAC's letter to USA Swimming. In response, USA Swimming responded that updating SWIMS was essential to continue operating as a national governing body and to ensure compliance with SafeSport and USOPC. USA Swimming acknowledged the difficult rollout, writing, “The updated compliance required an accelerated rollout timeline, but the organization has continued to enhance features and functionality in response to member feedback, including the addition of mass registration and renewal via third-party team management software.”

USA Swimming further reports in its letter: “Since the introduction of direct online member registration, digital message deliverability and open rates have doubled.”

Read USA Swimming’s full letter to members here.