An Open Letter to USA Swimming Members from Chuck Wielgus & Jim Wood

Dear members of USA Swimming,

In the past couple of days, you have likely seen or read media coverage criticizing USA Swimming’s policies on child protection. The story has made many headlines, but it lacks a great deal of truth.

We want to take this opportunity to speak openly to you, our swimming family.
First, and most importantly, sexual abuse – and any abuse of our athletes – is an issue that USA Swimming takes very, very seriously, and always has. It breaks our hearts to see a child mistreated. It should simply never happen. We are a youth organization first, and the safety of our kids is the absolute most important consideration in our business.

We have several safeguards in place to protect our members from the small number of people who would act inappropriately. 

1) Background Screening: In 2006, USA Swimming implemented a Background Screening process required of all member coaches.

2) Code of Conduct: USA Swimming vigorously enforces its Code of Conduct, which specifically prohibits any form of abusive behavior. We have expelled a number of coaches for violating this Code of Conduct.

3) Club & Coach Education: When considering coach hires, we encourage our clubs to conduct pre-employment screening, beyond our criminal background screen. Coaches are required to have current certification in CPR, First Aid, and Safety Training for Swim Coaches. Additionally, all coaches must take and pass the “Foundations of Coaching,” test, before registering for his/her second year of coaching.

4) Reporting/Investigation/Board of Review: Sexual abuse is a criminal activity, and one that should be immediately reported to the local police. As a secondary level of reporting, we have a process by which members can file complaints with our organization. We employ both outside counsel and private investigators to investigate complaints of inappropriate behavior. Those complaints may then go forward to our Board of Review, which has the authority to suspend or revoke membership when appropriate.

We invest a great deal of resources in the above programs each year, because the issue of athlete safety is of paramount importance to our organization. That said, we feel we can be doing more to protect our members – and for that reason, have been considering several additions to our existing safety policies.

1) Emphasis on Reporting: We are working to further emphasize the responsibility of all members to report inappropriate behavior to ensure that those who offend are not permitted to stay in the system.

2) Educational Elements: We realize there is reluctance in our society to report this type of abuse, so we are currently working on ways to educate our athletes, coaches and clubs to identify and report inappropriate behavior.

3) Expert Opinion: We have sought and are continuing to seek information from other reputable child-focused organizations, to help us analyze and add to the available programming and policies to best serve our membership.

We assure you that we are completely committed to doing right by our youth members. That includes our safety policies.

If you have ideas or input you’d like to share with me on this topic, we welcome you to email us with your questions, comments or ideas. We are always open to talking about the issue, and certainly to discussing ideas that will beneficial to our sport.

Thank you for taking the time.

Sincerely,

Jim Wood
President

Chuck Wielgus
Executive Director