Editorial: Seattle Times Journalist Ron Judd Replies to SwimInfo Editorial

By Ron Judd

SEATTLE, September 13. I won’t waste a lot of time responding to this screed, except to say this:

The writer (Duncan Scott) has no clue about me, my background, my training, my profession, or anything else, apparently. I’ve covered five Olympics and, contrary to this ridiculous blather, spend the majority of my time – not a couple weeks every year – covering amateur sports. I’ve spent a majority of that time over the past two Olympic cycles covering swimming.

I believe swimmers are the most dedicated, and in many cases courageous, athletes I’ve ever covered. The totality of my work reflects that. Anyone who takes the few necessary minutes to review that work will see that I’ve been able to highlight the successes and trials of Olympic-level swimmers more successfully than most columnists at major U.S. newspapers, simply because I believe they deserve the coverage more than most athletes, particularly professional ones.

I personally led the fight to save swimming as a sport at the University of Washington when the athletic director cut it there as an unecessary expense. I’ve profiled the heroics (a word I’ve never used for any other athletes in any other sports) of many top-level swimmers. And I”ve put them on the front page of our sports section time after time, in spite of a general yawn toward the subject by many sports editors and newspapers.

The characterization of me as someone who shows up once every four years to write about the Olympics and then goes back to some other addle-brained sport, like football or basketball, is not only ludicrous, it’s offensive and completely inaccurate.

As to doping: I know many current and former U.S. swimmers well enough to believe, strongly, that doping is not rampant in the sport in America. At the same time, I know enough to believe just as fully – as the writer himself acknowledged — that some doping has gone on in the sport in this country, just like every other amateur sport, although clearly not to the degree of some, or perhaps most, others. My comment was simply to suggest that any U.S. coach commenting on doping of athletes from other nations — and making the clear inference that no great performance in the history of U.S. swimming was ever influenced by illegal substances — is something that could come back to haunt him. Perhaps I should have taken more time and care to make it clear I was in no way comparing U.S. swimming of this or any other era to the obvious, systematic doping that went on behind the Iron Curtain. I don’t believe that, and in fact made no such inference, at least intentionally.

The item I wrote was not intended to be a treatise on the subject. It was a short column item written during an Olympics in which I was spending about 18 hours a day trying to get out the daily news – almost universally positive news, incidentally – about Olympic swimmers from the U.S. and abroad. I find it ironic the writer either failed to see that coverage, or simply conveniently ignored it. It’s all readily available on our web site, www.seattletimes.com.

I urge anyone to review it in totality before writing me off as a ignorant oaf who neither gets, nor appreciates, the sport of swimming.

As to the writer’s other, rather bizarre, analogy between what I wrote and his apparent struggle to come to grips with the 9/11 attacks: Spare me. That’s the biggest reach I’ve seen in a long, long time, and believe me, I see a lot of them. The conclusion that my comment about a swim coach is analogous to “Blame America First” is incomprehensible and not even worthy of comment. It was so beyond the pale I strongly considered just letting this go, except that it seems to be being spread by email to people who have no clue about my work in general.

As to his final point, that I owe someone an apology: Sorry, I disagree. A column has an opinion, I stated one, and I stand by it. But I’ll gladly accept the challenge to “step up to the plate” and cite smoke and/or fire well into the future. Believe me, it’s there, and if the swimming community feels it’d be beneficial to delve into it, I’m sure it could be arranged in some form. Attacks like the one above, if anything, give me further motivation to do just that.

Incidentally: Was it by intention or simple oversight that the writer, in listing Olympic swimmers “who held or shared the existing U.S. swim marks” neglected to include Amy Van Dyken? Seems like if you’re going to have a list, you should make it complete. I’m sure her recent appearance before the BALCO grand jury had nothing to do with the oversight.

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use