Margaret Hoelzer is set on making the sport of swimming safer. The two time US Olympian, and three time Olympic Medalist, is a spokesperson for the National Children’s Advocacy Center and is part of the Committee for Safe Sport at USA Swimming. This week she was part of USA Swimming’s Safe Sport Leadership Conference in Colorado Springs. In this interview with Garrett McCaffrey, Hoelzer discusses things like what makes athletes vulnerable, as well as creating a culture of safety for athletes. She talks about USA Swimming’s stance on adult coach-athlete relationships, and some of the fine lines that coaches should know about when it comes to interacting with athletes. Hoelzer, herself a victim of sexual abuse as a child, talks about the best way to deal with an abusive situation as a victim.
Comments
Leave a Reply
About Garrett McCaffrey
No one lives the sport of swimming like Garrett McCaffrey. A Division I swimmer who spent 4 years covering the... Read More »
Way to go Marge! Proud of you and your willingness to be a leader in a topic so many want to avoid. Keep up the great work!
I admire Margaret Hoelzer. She’s definitely got a lifetime’s worth of work ahead. Interesting that she mentioned U.S. Masters Swimming. The organization has traditionally been a safe haven for banned USA Swimming coaches. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were multiple banned coaches who currently belong to USMS and continue to coach and date swimmers. Because all members are so-called “consenting adults”, USMS flies under the radar with a lot of perfectly legal, unseemly behavior.
US Masters, Colleges, High Schools etc. It’s very CREEPY to see these coaches who can’t coach with USA swimming but coach at these other establishments.
At least they cannot coach at y clubs
there shouldnt be any focus on what goes on in masters swimming or w post collegiate swimmers, theres too much going on between coaches and MINORS. lets clean out all those scumbags instead.
unless of course there are sex offenders coaching those levels. then they should be banned from the sport completely by fina…
The problem is that sex offenders do move on and coach with these other organizations. Alot of college students are 17 years old. Masters swimmers can be as young as 18 years old and I know for a fact that sometimes age groupers swim with Masters groups. As far as I’m concerned, yound adults (18, 19, 20), are still vulnerable and should not be fair game for a sex offender regardless of what organization they belong to.