252 Days into New CEO Search, No White Smoke from USA Swimming Headquarters

While the white smoke floats up in Rome on Thursday, the chimneys of Colorado Springs remain clear.

It has been 69 days since USA Swimming announced that Chrissi Rawak would not, in fact, be the organization’s next CEO. Ignoring Rawak’s short stint, that’s 252 days of vacancy for a million dollar-per-annum job.

While transparency has been non-existence throughout the process, leaks have been plentiful from disgruntled stakeholders trying to find a light at the end of the tunnel.

Insiders tell SwimSwam that the decision makers seem to be making a similar mistake as they did in the first round that led to Rawak’s hiring, which ultimately proved to be the wrong decision. Members of the Board of Directors are continuing to choose their favored candidate before the process really takes hold, and then invest their energy into kneecapping any other candidates without even hearing their visions or proposals for the future of the sport.

That is the same approach that led to Rawak’s hiring.

Interim CEO Bob Vincent, suddenly a strong contender for the position on a full-time basis, earned some points among a portion of the membership by bringing in two capable coaches to run the National Team division in Greg Meehan and Yuri Suguiyama; he has also made enemies with some board members who felt like they were excluded from the process of both hires and only notified after the final decisions were made (though USA Swimming has confirmed that the board was notified and approved Meehan’s hiring before it was announced and finalized).

When Rawak resigned, USA Swimming promised a more efficient process on the backs of things like “we already have the interview questions written.”

And they’re still well short of the length of the first process, which took a staggering 174 days, almost 6 months. But the sport in America, which is facing challenges on virtually every front, is about to complete its first full year “post-Olympic bump” style without a permanent CEO, and enter year 2 of a home Olympic quad absent a permanent leader. The absence of many brands that have been long time financial supporters of the organization from the “Our Partners” section of the USA Swimming website tells one story about the undisputable damage that is being done by the delays.

In the wake of Chrissi Rawak‘s resignation, a number of swimmers-turned-lawyers began investigating what Colorado law says about non-profit Boards of Directors. Those efforts seem to have petered out, but the confidence in the board’s ability to find a replacement have not.

At some point, it has to be said, even though I recognize the repercussions that are going to come my way as a result of saying it: the whole things screams of amateurism. The sport deserves better, and existentially needs better.

There are 5 Board of Directors seats up for election next year. Make your votes wisely.