USA Swimming Releases Response To Letters From ASCA And Coaches Advisory Council

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

The letters sent by the Coaches Advisory Council and ASCA are separate but focus on similar issues, including a lack of faith in USA Swimming’s leadership to deal with challenges the sport is facing in multiple areas, including membership rates, USA Swimming staff turnover and vacancies, stakeholder engagement, and the roll-out of SWIMS.

Related:

• Letter From ASCA To USA Swimming Board of Directors
• Letter from USA Swimming’s Coaches Advisory Council 

USA Swimming’s response, also available on their website, addresses several of the concerns in specific sections. In acknowledging the CAC and ASCA’s letters, USA Swimming wrote it “hopes to offer insights in response…we continue to work diligently to hear all members’ voices and consider constructive criticism…We do, however, want to correct some inaccuracies so we can move forward with the same set of facts.”

Membership Rates and “The Threat Posed By AAU”

One of the key concerns raised by both the CAC and ASCA was the membership rates. ASCA called for leadership accountability for the decline in membership, and the CAC raised the issue of teams departing USA Swimming for AAU. In its letter, USA Swimming responded to concerns over declining membership rates by releasing a membership chart over time from 2005-2024. The new cycle just began and USA Swimming already releasing the 2024 membership numbers is a sharp contrast to waiting as long as they could to release the numbers of the 2022 decline.

Chart from USA Swimming’s letter to the membership

According to these numbers, the peak of USA Swimming membership was in 2017 at 421.2K registrations. Tim Hinchey was hired as the CEO of USA Swimming that year and began work in September. Registration waned year over year from 2017 until the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when there was a sharp decrease in membership. Numbers went back up in 2022 to 396.2K, and are at 379.8K for 2024, a slight increase from 2023, when registration declined 4.6%.

As shown in the chart, USA Swimming has seen an increase in membership in post-Olympic years since 2008. In its letter, it characterizes the increase in membership from 2023 to 2024 as “the first time since 2012, we saw an increase in athlete membership growth in a non-post-Olympic year.”

But, it’s also possible to look at this chart and draw the conclusion that for the past two years, USA Swimming has had its lowest membership rate since 2012 outside of years when there was a global pandemic.

While USA Swimming dedicated a subsection of its letter to “the threat posed by AAU” the letter gives the outward appearance of calm on this topic. “Much like how the success of other countries in international competition only pushes us to be faster, the presence of emerging competitors to USA Swimming should be seen as an opportunity to understand how those offerings appeal to our members,” the letter reads. AAU has not confirmed its official registration numbers to SwimSwam.

USA Swimming has also seen a decline in its net assets in 2022, which are the most recently released tax documents. Net assets fell from $39,250,078 to $21,583,773, a loss of 45% on the year.

Staff Turnover and International Success

In its response to the CAC and ASCA’s concerns about staff turnover, replacements, and vacancies, USA Swimming wrote “At the Q1 Board meeting each year, the CEO must present key or material personnel decisions in an open session. The Board approves this report at that meeting, during which any discussion or questions are welcome. Following the meeting and approval of the report by the Board, the report is available publicly as part of the Board Meeting Minutes on USA Swimming’s website.”

Of note, Chief Operating Officer Shana Ferguson was promoted last month along with two others who appear to be key and material to the organization, not after the annual Q1 board meeting.

The most glaring vacancy is that of Junior National Team Director, which USA Swimming’s letter does not address. It’s a position that has been vacant for most of Hinchey’s tenure at the helm of USA Swimming. The post was empty from the start of the COVID pandemic, when Mitch Dalton joined the Texas women’s program, until March 2022 when Erik Posegay filled the position. Since Posegay joined the Texas staff this off-season, the position remains open.

ASCA’s letter writes “We need an experienced and accomplished coach to lead our National Team, and we need an outstanding, credible coach leader for the Junior National Team as well. The home Olympics require our best, and we feel an athlete-centered and coach-driven approach will allow USA Swimming to perform at its best.”

Since 2017, Lindsay Mintenko has held the role of “National Team Managing Director,” rather than “National Team Director.” The role has shifted from a coaching position to more of an administrative and coordinator position.

In their assertion about the importance of the Junior National Team Director in the run-up to a home Olympics in 2028, ASCA’s letter indirectly brings up Team USA’s performance at the 2024 Olympics. Per USA Swimming’s letter, the 2024 U.S. Olympic team met all the goals laid out: “win the gold medal count, win the overall medal count, and achieve the overall medal goal set by the USOPC in its high-performance plan.”

The U.S. did win the medal table by one gold over Australia and led the total medal count. However, that wasn’t the takeaway many had from Paris, as it is clear that the rest of the world is catching the United States. The American men went without an individual gold medal until the final individual event of the meet when Bobby Finke set a world record in the 1500 freestyle. The men’s side’s other gold came from the 4×100 freestyle relay to open the meet.

Non-Athlete Stakeholders

As for the feeling described by the CAC that USA Swimming does not listen to non-athlete stakeholders, USA Swimming responded by invoking the results from a study done earlier this year that a majority of coaches answered they were at least “somewhat satisfied” with USA Swimming. USA Swimming wrote they will release another survey in the fall.

As seen in the results from the February survey, the SWIMS 3.0 database released in 2022 has been a point of frustration for coaches. This was reemphasized in the CAC’s letter to USA Swimming. In response, USA Swimming responded that updating SWIMS was essential to continue operations as a National Governing Body and remaining in compliance with SafeSport and the USOPC. USA Swimming acknowledged the difficult roll-out and wrote “Updated compliance required an accelerated launch timeline, but the organization has continued to improve features and functionality in response to member feedback, including the addition of bulk registration and renewal via third-party team management software.”

USA Swimming goes on to report in its letter that “Since the implementation of direct Online Member Registration, deliverability and open rates of digital communications have doubled.”

Read USA Swimming’s full letter to the membership here.