The Canyons Aquatic Club in Santa Clarita, California announced to its membership that it had “made the decision to not extend (head coach) David Kuck’s contract.” The decision was effective July 15th, ending his term as the program’s head coach.
The team is 3 days away from a team hosted Sectionals meet that will begin on Thursday, in addition to upcoming Junior Olympics, Futures, Nationals, and Junior National Championship meets.
Kuck was brought on to become the club’s new head coach in the summer of 2017, where he replaced Coley Stickels. Stickels at the time was leaving to become an assistant at Indiana, and earlier this summer was named the head coach at Alabama.
Kuck previously worked as a the North Senior 2 Lead Coach and a Masters Coach at SwimMAC Carolina in Charlotte. The club has produced a number of Olympians and until recently had 2016 U.S. Women’s Olympic Team head coach David Marsh as its head coach and CEO.
Kuck has previous stops with the City of Dublin swim club and the Westerville Aquatic Club.
As an athlete, Kuck was a four-year Big Ten Championship finalists at Ohio State.
The club has faced increase scrutiny and pressure after former assistant Jeremy Anderson died in June in U.S. Marshal custody. He was in the process of being extradited to the US to face charges that he had sexually assaulted a member of the team. Since them, 10 more potential victims have been identified. Anderson was a coach from 2006-2017, meaning that only a small portion of his tenure there overlapped with that of Kuck. Multiple sources tell SwimSwam that Kuck repeatedly reported Anderson to SafeSport authorities, and that he was among the most vocal about having Anderson removed from the club, even when he was met with internal resistance, before the accused swimmers stepped forward.
The club is planning an all-members meeting for July 22nd to discuss the path forward.
Anyone tuning into KFI 640 yesterday afternoon would have heard the story of the Stockton Swim Club dealing with their coach predator. Canyons did get brought up during the conversation. It was interesting to note over 120 USA swimming coaches have been under investigation/sanctioned and they were all still actively coaching. The problem is a huge one. We as parents, coaches and officials have to be vigilant. If there is the slightest suspicion that a coach is sexually abusing swimmers the coach has to be put on leave pending the results of the investigation. There can be absolutely no wavering on this. What the Canyons board is guilty of and so many other swim clubs and high ranking officials in… Read more »
Amen
Great Sectional Meet! Thank you Canyons for taking good care of me and my athletes!
Canyon’s past and present board needs to be held accountable for not acting sooner regarding the actions and reporting of Jeremey Anderson’s conduct. Canyons needs to own what happened to the victims. They need to make amends to the victims and offer each and every one of them any support they need to recover from what happened to them. Canyons also needs to focus on creating a safer and stable environment for their swimmers. They need to clean up their financial mess in terms of the 503C tax fiasco. They need to focus on getting a new Coach. What they don’t need to focus on is their neighbor Paseo Aquatics. Paseo has been quietly gaining swimmers, creating their own champions… Read more »
Still don’t understand what is the reason to terminate the contract?
Under Dave’s leadership the club went from over 700 swimmer to now just a little over 300! Dollars and cents is the reason his contract was terminated
is that an empirical number or a guess?
Not a real number. 2016 board meeting reported 600, but that included the swim school and was right after an Olympics that included a Canyons swimmer. The way they present the numbers each year has been different.
Is there any reported numbers on the membership for the last 2 years?
According to a Canyon’s employee swim school numbers were never used, and a -32% drop has happened during the years David was the coach. I can not personally verify these numbers are correct and have been told different by others.
Blaming the drop on Kuck …really how about blaming it on Jeremey Anderson and the same board that hired him and did nothing to stop him? Kuck was a bad hire …. who’s fault it that … again the board.
Kuck isn’t the reason for your drop in swimmers …. Anderson and board mismanagement are the reason. The board has failed to address the elephant in the room …. Why did they not take immediate action when they first knew of Anderson’s misconduct? Why have they not owned their part in this? What have they done for the victims? Why are they acting as if nothing happened or worse yet blaming the Anderson mess on past coaches? Why hasn’t the club become a level2 safe sport club in light of recent events. How about a public apology? When are they going to fix their tax issues? Why is the club still concerned about Paseo while trying to poach their coach?… Read more »
When and where did the Board “blame the Anderson mess on past coaches?”
I know the coaches have had to go on the defensive to protect their reputations. They did the right thing. It is the board that failed to act and prevent Anderson from further victimizing more swimmers. As one parent recently said to me “there is a very dark cloud that hangs over the club… Until they own this … make amends …ensure the safety of current swimmers the club can’t get past this”
The board was looking for a scapegoat in their loss of swimmers. Instead of addressing their own shortcomings they decided let Kuck take the wrap. Kuck walked into a very bad situation. The situation blow up in the boards face because of their failure to act.
as a member of canyons top training group, i’m SO glad to see kuck gone. he would always bring a bad ora to both some parents (majority of parents i should say) and mostly all of the swimmers. he would always ignore many of his swimmers, fast or slow, and would give them attitude. With the new head coach, i definitely see canyons producing a lot of jr national and national level swimmers!!
I worked with Dave at SwimMAC Carolina for about 2 years or so. I have nothing but respect for Coach Dave Kuck. I would consider him a Coach’s Coach. No fluff. I witnessed him turn some of the most hopeless of high school kids into fast respectable athletes as I assisted him while there. He’s one of the most stand up men I’ve ever met. Where he goes from Canyons will be blessed to have him.
He was working exactly the same at Canyons.
Nothing but respect – you can now have him back.
David is probably a good coach for younger kids but not for top level swimmers. During his tenure Canyons went from a top level swim team to basically a non existent one in California. Happy to see him gone so team can rebuild.
Not true, Coley left all your “Top Level Swimmers” high and dry. We had no feeder to this “elite group” due Jay Anderson. Easy to blame someone who inherited a steaming pile of garbage.
He wasn’t a great coach for the younger kids. Ag1 and Ag2 have both fallen apart in the last 2 years. The fun pumpkin meets and cookie meets are a thing of the past. The younger kids are leaving to other clubs where they can actually swim a 25 in a meet.
I do have to applaud Canyon’s board members for not renewing Coach Dave’s contract. He was very rude and negative with SOME of his fast swimmers, instead of giving positive feed back to his swimmers – he would turn his back and ignore the swimmer.
We had just opposite experience with Dave. He was one of the best coaches our
swimmer had at Canyons.