Derrick “Tom” Fraenkel, a swim coach at the Valley Area Swim Academy in Valley, Alabama, has been given a 1-year suspension by USA Swimming. His suspension officially began on April 16th, 2018 and will end on April 16th, 2019.
Two sections of the USA Swimming Code of Conduct were cited: 304.3.4 and 305.1. Those two sections are cited below:
304.3.4 – The following shall be considered violations of the USA Swimming Code of Conduct…Violation of any of the Athlete Protection Policies set forth in Article 305
305.1 – Inappropriate touching between an athlete and an adult non-athlete member or Participating Non-Member (as defined in 401.1) is prohibited, including, but not limited to, excessive touching, hugging, kissing, and having an athlete sit on a non-family member adult’s lap
While no criminal charges that we could find have been filed against Fraenkle, an individual identifying as Fraenkle left the comment below on an article on SwimmingWorldMagazine.com on March 10th, 2018. In the comment, Fraenkel says that he was “banned for life” (he wasn’t) for “simply hugging their swimmers in front of their parents.”
Fraenkel claims that he was reported by a young female coach who was attempting to get his program driven out of the City of Valley Sportsplex community center. NAIA member Point University also practices at the Sportsplex facility.
Assuming a standard month-long appeal period that comment would’ve been left about a week before a decision was made on his punishment.
Fraenkel’s comment is below:
There’s no need to ever hug or touch my swimmers! They are perfectly happy, encouraged and consoled by my words. Parkas are for “warmth”, not the coaches hands.
This coach DID receive a lifelong ban under Susan Woessner’s purvue in January 2018. It was after she was forced out of her position that they decided to alter the decision to one year after his appeal.
I think that the reversal says a lot about how US Swim operates or has operated in the past
I’ve read your last sentence several times, and still have have no idea what you were trying to say.
I was simply saying that since only one coach has been removed from the banned list since the Safe Sport program was started in 2010 (Michael Pliuskaitis, according to SwimSwam article from Jan 4, 2018), and that was after arbitration, maybe Coach Fraenkel has a point regarding how US Swim mishandled the complaint against him.
I’m not sure why they would change their decision on his ban without arbitration, unless they felt it was the wrong decision.
Coach Tom tried to pay to have an independent arbitrator (AAA) look as this case in order to get the one year ban removed. USA Swimming refused. They also refused to look at affidavits from lifeguards at the pool saying that he had done nothing wrong. They also would not look at copies of texts showing where there was a plan between the Sportsplex manager and Aquatic Director to give Tom’s USA team to the AD if they could get him out). USA Swim has no real interest in finding out the truth. The same day that they handed him the initial permanent ban was the same say that USA swimming found out that they were being investigated by Congress…that… Read more »
Coach Tom coached at my club team for a few months. He is just a different kinda guy, very nice man. Will wait till more information comes to light.
I am pretty sure what got him banned was the picture of a swimmer sitting on his lap. I heard it was a ban for life but he appealed and got one year. This guy needs to be gone. No one needs to be sitting on “grandpas” lap during a meet.
Hmmmm….and where did you get this information?
How do you know he is a “grandpa”? Coach Fraenkel’s age was never mentioned. Sounds to me like you have inside information and perhaps a personal vendetta.
His age was never mentioned, but in the post from SW (that we can only assume he wrote) says he has been coaching for 48 years. That means he is > 65, right?
Where did he get the information about the picture of the swimmer sitting in the coach’s lap? Did I miss seeing that in print somewhere?
I do think that we need to keep the athletes safe and looking at the incidences within swimming, it is clear that we need safe sport. However, we need a reasonableness test. What is the “test” to determine “excessive”? Is it a matter that if the parents of the athlete or the athlete object after the fact, that the hug is deemed “excessive”? Is it more than 2 seconds and it is excessive? There could have been lots of excessive hugging at the 2016 Olympic Trials, so could the circumstances of the hug determine what is “appropriate hugging” and “excessive hugging”? I’m sure there are four sides to this entire incident, if it was one incident; the coach’s side, the… Read more »
I’ve long felt that it is dangerous to the profession to allow Safe Sport, as noble as their intentions undoubtedly are, to act with the impunity they seem to be able to. I don’t know any of the specifics of this case, but the general reaction to what could be anonymous or unfounded complaints is terrifying to me on a daily basis. I really think some sort of Coaches Union needs to be established so that coaches have an organization to turn to for legal assistance when their careers and livelihoods are being threatened based on possibly dubious evidence. Keep kids safe is priority #1, but there have to be better checks in place.
A coaches’ union does exist. They’ve declared that they don’t deal with SafeSport issues, because they don’t work with children.
First time I’ve heard of it, but that’s disappointing. A union should exist to provide the strength in numbers necessary to keep professionals safe from being singled out by employers or governing bodies. I guess I don’t understand the language “they don’t work with children”.
Interesting that the Point University website says that swim coach position is “To Be Determined”.
Excessive hugging is when they say “Take your marks” during your heat in competition and you can’t do it because your coach still hugs you.