Thursday marks the 365th day since USA Swimming CEO Tim Hinchey officially announced his resignation from the role with a letter on the USA Swimming website. That’s one full year without any long-term leadership or vision toward the upcoming U.S.-hosted Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
Hinchey is now off working in hockey in the Vancouver Canucks organization, and USA Swimming is still without its long-term solution.
In that time, three individuals have sat in the seat on an interim basis. First it was Hinchey’s #2 Shana Ferguson, who immediately took over the interim CEO title. She briefly returned to that role after Chrissi Rawak’s short-lived, nine day stint before joining the LA28 staff.
Then there was the failed, and forced, Rawak hiring, before SafeSport notified USA Swimming what multiple tasks forces and hundreds of thousands of dollars in hiring costs had missed.
After Ferguson spent a few more weeks rearranging deck chairs before her final departure, Bob Vincent, a member of the same Board of Directors who hired Rawak, resigned that role to take over USA Swimming.
And now here we are. A day short of celebration national “no CEO day.”
While there is a growing global precedent for private organizations to operate without CEOs, those decisions are made intentionally and with a lot of thought and vision behind them.
The optics of one year are bad, but there’s really a much more glaring message: after Rawak’s resignation, USA Swimming said that the second search would be shorter. Because of the materials they had leftover and the things they learned in the first search, it wouldn’t take them as long this time.
It took them 183 days the first time. Day 365 marks a year, while day 366 marks another 183 days and another promise unfulfilled.
SwimSwam sources say that two men were brought in a few weeks ago for final interviews, and that one has emerged as a favorite. As with Rawak, it takes a few weeks to finalize contract negotiations, which implies that an announcement should be imminent.
But this all-but-proves the rumors: the most qualified candidates are losing interest in manning the listless vessel. The search firms and committees have had to get creative in looking for leaders who have retired from their primary career and have any connection or experience in the Olympic world.
It’s not as if nothing is happening. Bob Vincent has been more aggressive in big decision making than the average interim CEO, including restructuring the National Team department, some high profile promotions, and the departure of a lot of senior staff.
But that’s not the same as a full-time hire who can lay out a plan and a strategy for the next three, seven, or 11 years – which is what CEOs are meant to do.
And once again, the process is clouded with secrecy. No transparency, no timelines, no updates, no “hey swimming community, help us vet this candidate before we make another mistake.”
Just crickets and curtains.
With USA Swimming preferring to announce their biggest news on Fridays, it would be poetic if they announced it tomorrow, on the first anniversary of announcing Hinchey’s resignation.
The North Star of USA swimming should be increasing age group membership. Every decision should be tied to: how does this decision increase age group membership? Incentives should be aligned and CEO compensation should be a corporate middle manager salary (certainly livable in Colorado Springs) with bonuses tied to aggressive membership increases. More age groupers means more members to spread the operational cost, greater chances of finding athletically gifted and hard working future elite athletes, more proficient young swimmers and less overall drownings, more swimsuit sales (which will hopefully translate to more lucrative swimsuit sponsorships of elite athletes), and a bigger pool of washed up former age groupers to jump into master programs. The only apparatus currently keeping kids engaged… Read more »
Hire Mike Unger. Coaches would follow him has great business vision and should have been hired after wielgus
Not sure there is enough $ possible to lure him back after the way he was treated and discarded as well as some of his close associates. He would have been the right choice after Wielgus as he was essentially running the organization as Chuck’s health deteriorated and remains the best choice now.
Unger applied. The search firm was late to his zoom interview and he did not make it past the first round of “interviews.”
Congrats!
Still waiting for my interview.
honestly this intervening year just has me convinced that a ceo doesn’t do all that much
I think you’ll see longterm repercussions down the line.
We’re already seeing the long term repercussions of the Hinchey hire- membership numbers down, a dysfunctional board, and a trend of declined performance at the highest level.
This is my type of petty lmao
Unfortunate situation.
Will it ever end?
Kinda hilarious that Hinchey went from dysfunctional USA Swimming to the dysfunctional Vancouver Canucks, a team that notably had two of their top three players feuding to the point where one of them was traded for locker room harmony
Well at least the Canucks were smart enough not to put him in charge.