USA Swimming has issued a three-year suspension to Phoenix Swimming (NH) owner and founder Matt Williams for fraud.
Williams’ suspension became effective on June 4, 2025, and will run through June 4, 2028.
He was suspended for the following violations:
- USA Swimming Code of Conduct (2024) 304.3.9: Any act of fraud, deception or dishonesty in connection with any USA Swimming-related activity.
- USA Swimming Code of Conduct (2024) 304.3.12: Any other material and intentional act, conduct or omission not provided for above, which is detrimental to USA Swimming, an LSC or the sport of swimming.
Williams appealed the suspension, and reportedly was on deck for Phoenix Swimming at the GRIT Long Course Invite at Wesleyan College on June 12-15, after the dates of the suspension. A USA Swimming spokesperson said his suspension was put on hold during the appeal and only officially went into effect in early November.
Williams founded Phoenix Swimming, based out of Haverville, Mass., in 2010.
Williams and Phoenix Swimming were taken to court by Stephen Van Der Beken, the head coach of the Manchester Swim Team, who first sued Williams and Phoenix Swimming in 2021 and earlier this year filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition.
Van Der Beken and Williams entered into an agreement in 2016, whereby Williams purchased 50% ownership in Van Der Beken’s swim team business, according to the United States Bankruptcy Court file.
Van Der Beken first sued Williams and Phoenix Swimming in 2021 for breach of contract. After obtaining a writ of attachment and trustee process in 2023, a three-day trial in early June 2024 concluded with an order for Williams to pay Van Der Beken $243,212.00 in damages plus costs. Williams was also ordered to pay Van Der Beken’s attorney’s fees of $58,603.48 within 60 days. After failing to meet that deadline, Van Der Beken sought further relief in State Court in a motion filed on August 23, 2024, asking the State Court to find Williams and Phoenix in contempt of the Fee Award.
After Phoenix Swimming failed to file its 2023 and 2024 annual reports in the state of New Hampshire, the company was administratively dissolved under State law on Sept. 1, 2024. The company was previously administratively dissolved in 2015 before being reinstated upon payment of a fee.
During a hearing on Oct. 25, 2024, Williams indicated he couldn’t pay the Judgment ($243,212) or the Fee Award ($58,603.48). He was then given a payment plan by the court, which also authorized Van Der Beken “full financial discovery from Williams and Phoenix”.
Van Der Beken filed a status report in late December, asserting that Williams “continues to ignore, obfuscate and disregard legitimate discovery requests.”
On January 30, 2025, after his motion requesting Williams and Phoenix to be required to make escrow payments from upcoming swim meets was denied, Van Der Beken filed an involuntary petition in Bankruptcy Court, alleging that “the debtor is generally not paying its debts as they become due, unless they are in the subject of a bona fide dispute as to liability or amount.”
However, ultimately, the Court found that Phoenix Swimming is “generally paying its debts as they become due,” dismissing the involuntary petition from Van Der Beken. The judge also chose not to award Phoenix fees, costs, or damages, and the case was closed on April 14, 2025.
SwimSwam has reached out to USA Swimming for specifics on Williams’ suspension, but has not heard back.
Sorry, wasn’t able to avoid posting it here.
https://x.com/stoberikrimcis/status/2002576558805098994
New England swimming has far too many abusive coaches for such a small area. Coaches walking around pool decks slandering athletes, parents, and other coaches to anyone who is unfortunate enough to be standing next to them. Coaches and officials who witness what is often textbook bullying by offenders don’t say anything out of fear, or because it’s their buddy being abusive. It’s almost as if abusive coaches use the safe sport courses as a checklist to make sure they’re bullying correctly instead of using them as a tool for reflection in order to improve their behavior.
Yet another example for you: The vice chair of New England Swimming groomed a 16 year old athlete while she was in her mid 20’s and training overseas. According to officials at the US Center for Safesport, she would not even be allowed to coach in America if it happened here, but their hands are apparently tied because it occurred in a different country.
Everyone knows this, yet she is repeatedly elected to board positions and is even allowed to coach the zone team. New England Swimming even endorsed her for a role on the coaches advisory council (thankfully she didn’t win because people outside New England can actually google).
Does this sound like an organization serious about dealing with… Read more »
I was a Head Coach for 6 years in NES after having been coaching in another LSC in a different part of the country for a few years and I couldn’t believe how toxic NES was. The crazy part is I’m originally from NE and grew up swimming in NE and so when I moved back I thought it’d be a welcoming environment, after my first year and our senior champs, I had 3 families come up to me to tell me that a neighboring coach had called them personally and even took one family out to lunch because “the new coach (me) was ‘in over my head’ and wouldn’t lead to the success they were looking for”. I was… Read more »
Seeing so many athletes and ex athletes of Phoenix to finally came out sharing their brutal experiences with Matt and Lori makes me wonder, why do we all need to Safe Sport training every year if the Safe Sport committee won’t even take action on many misconduct behavior reports submitted against Matt and Lori for years. I thought we all supposed to See Something Say Something and Report Abuse!
Or we are dealing with a couple of fatty losers with nothing better to do, or perhaps even coaches from rival teams attempting to sensationalize the situation for their own purposes. The true identities of the posters remain unknown here, and several posters have already been exposed for using multiple aliases.
Hey Matt, do you know where your swimmers are? I guess not since you are no longer coaching practices. But if you ask Lori, she’s going to tell you it was pretty quiet in the bubble tonight.
Some folks below have already looked into the “this is Matt” theory, but they decided it doesn’t hold up 😉
Whom I have never seen at the training pools or swim meets is Steve Van Der Beken. I even had to Google him to see what he looks like! I mean, if he owns 50% of the club, shouldn’t he be around more? You’d think someone with that much stake would at least show up to help run things or work with the kids, right?
Phoenix will arise, trust me on this.
And let’s be real — those chickens who bailed are gonna regret it big time.
matt this sounds just like you i know you too well little buddy. also the “chickens” you are talking about is 95% of the team! have fun!
preach. this guy knows whats up. matts cooked
Yet another “preach” here. I know you can do it – find a word that’ll really stand out!
Just another half-baked copycat who clearly has no clue what they’re talking about. Matt will be just fine despite all the noise.
Pretty sure I read 1, maybe 2 had multiple aliases, and all the posts were in support of Matt 🤷🏽 Nice try though
The style and wording of the metooers here is so obviously almost identical that I don’t understand what are you arguing with,
phoenix swimming is the team where your child’s love for swimming will be ripped apart by coaches who are demeaning, body shaming, and ridiculing. save yourself from future adolescent therapy bills and choose any other swim team. please.
And there were chunks of bloody fat tossed around the pool their pool in Haverhill, yeah!
Wth?… Get off this platform, you’re going too far now. You’re doing Matt a further ‘disservice’ by embarrassing yourself while saying you support him. Anyone can see now that people who support Matt are either deranged individuals like you or manipulated teenagers.
Don’t tell me what I should do and I’ll not tell you where you should go.
Let’s be real — anyone moaning about the coach making swimmers work harder is just being silly.
A fat athlete? That’s just plain ridiculous!
How about “let’s be real” about how much you’ve been embarrassing yourself on here. It’s honestly impressive!! Kudos
Embarrassing, you say? Could you please clarify what exactly you mean by that? Or are you simply throwing around words without understanding their true meaning?
Crawl back into mommies basement, clown
Looks like we’ve got big Stephen King lover here! 😉
I just submitted an official complaint with USA swimming. Fraud is the least of his worries.
Was it anonymous complaint?
talking just to talk atp 😭🙏
Majority of commenters repeating the same just to talk. Like people atrophied their ability to produce their own opinion, if they ever had one. Simply mooing “metoo” here.
Coach Lauren, I hope you are reading this. You are the only genuine caring and loving coach in that team. You truly cared about us. So please, walk away from those two monsters before they tarnished your name and before they make you become one of them.
There’s a great book I’d like to recommend to the Phoenix Alum, current Phx swim parents, etc. it’s called The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Women’s Sports – From the Schoolyard to the Stadium. Men and parents of boys will find parts relevant too.
I swam for Phoenix for a year. I remember how jolly Matt seemed when I first him. He seemed genuinely invested in me, and made me feel so welcome. That changed so quickly so fast.
One of the biggest things I always say should’ve been something that caught my attention was the fact that there were no parents allowed at practice. Every day, when I walked in, I looked at Matt and Lori and payed attention to their moods, because that’s how you knew how the practice was about to go. The screaming, even at little kids, and the shaming was sprinkled in here or there, but you were taught to ignore or disregard it, to consider it lucky… Read more »
I also remember those days when the air quality was absolutely horrible before they finally figured out a solution to make it a bit more bearable. It took years when they figured out that taking a rinse before getting in the pool especially before dryland made it a half better – But during that time, so many of us had uncontrollable coughing fits, burning lungs, and constant respiratory issues. I had diagnosed bronchitis more than once. And every single time, we were told the same thing that we were exaggerating, that coughing was just a ‘chain reaction,’ that if we couldn’t handle it we were soft or making excuses and to get out if we couldn’t handle it. I’d stay… Read more »
or when the bubble came off / we would swim at the big cedardale at like 5AM and the water temperature was in the 60s bc it was OUTSIDE and and they didn’t care that kids were showing signs of hypothermia? They told us to just swim bc it would warm us up meanwhile kids were violently shaking and turning blue? Good times <3
Also when we would swim in the summer and the pool was BOILING HOT. I legit thought I was about to pass out. Literally the worst thing. The pool is meant to help you cool off when you’re swimming at your peak but instead, it’s literally cooking your body and heating you up even more.