Q & A With Mary Jo Swalley, USA Swimming President Candidate

JACKSONVILLE, Florida, September 13. THE upcoming United States Aquatic Sports Convention will feature the election of a new president of the USA Swimming Board of Directors. Swimming World gave each of the three candidates — Jeff Gudman, Jim Sheehan and Mary Jo Swalley — the opportunity to respond to our questions about USA Swimming and the issues facing the organization.

Swalley was interviewed by Swimming World Publisher Brent Rutemiller at the American Swim Coaches Association’s world clinic, and we present a transcript of the interview below the video player.

>> You’re watching Swimming World TV, I’m your host Brent Rutemiller, and I’m here I’m with Mary Jo Swalley, who’s a candidate for USA Swimming’s presidency. She’s currently the administration vice president for United States Swimming. Thanks for joining us, Mary Jo.

>> Thanks for having me, Brent. Pleasure to be here.

>> You’re welcome. Well, let’s talk about … that’s a big position to take over, and you’ve been part of the Board for 12 years.

>> Correct.

>> In that regard, you’ve been in Southern California swimming for, who knows…

>> A long time.

>> If you haven’t seen Mary Jo Swalley, then you really haven’t been involved with swimming.

>> [LAUGH]

>> So, why do you want to take on this position?

>> Well I think there are a number of things that drive my passion for the sport, that I think would lead to this. Principally, I believe that swimming is the best all-around sport for youth, adults also, but for our youth growing up. My second driver is, is I really believe that when I’m watching our swimmers, I may be watching future Olympians, but I’m sure, I know I’m watching future leaders. My third driving principle is, through our foundation, we really have a commitment to teach our life skill, swimming, as broadly across the country as possible. And lastly, I feel our sport has a perhaps not unique, because unique means one of a kind, but certainly an exceptional collaboration of its athletes, coaches, volunteers, and staff to make us better.

>> Well, those are great reasons to be a part of the organization, and to lead the organization to carry that vision. Being as long as you’ve been involved with this sport on multiple levels, you probably are a good person to ask, what are the strengths that you see right now in USA Swimming, and let’s maybe identify some of those opportunities, and some of those weaknesses, but let’s go with the strengths.

>> Let’s look at our build, promote, and achieve. Build: we’ve done a great job, our sport has done a great job, really, of expanding our numbers. Great strength, our athlete membership has gone up, the exceptional growth that we had after London, after Beijing. Great track forward. Again, swimming being a great all-around sport.

>> And that’s the build part of it.

>> That’s the build. Promote: our Swim Today, getting off the ground. Excellent opportunity to expand, bring more industry partners in to help us promote our sport. And we’re getting more television now. With television comes some burdens. Financially, commitment-wise. How it’s going to influence our events going forward but great opportunities to promote. Achieve: Our national teams are doing a wonderful job, our junior national kids did a great job at junior Pan Pacs.

>> Yes.

>> We still have to face the fact that the rest of the world swims faster and faster also, and that becomes our challenge in achieve. I would like to go back when we talked about build, and our numbers. I feel that, we may be taking our numbers beyond our capacity in many areas, and we are facing a problem of pool time, pool space, and frankly pools.

>> So this is a weakness that you are identifying, or something that needs to be looked at?

>> I believe that at a national level, we are going have to start trying to find corporate partnerships, municipal partnerships, et cetera, to ensure that our clubs have time to train our athletes, and that we have places to hold our events.

>> So if you were elected president would you make that a priority, or how would you go about trying to firm that up, and move in that direction to help with that?

>> Well I think that that has to be a board commitment, communicated to the staff. Because, ultimately, I see our board as our watchdog and a group that should be bringing the future forward. Our staff is where the work gets done, and I think we have a wonderful staff. Chuck (Wielgus, executive director) has done a great job of building a staff across the board, whether it’s in the club division, in the, the addition of a risk manager. Those are such positive things for our sport, Brent.

>> Yeah, so for our audience here, the staff is based in Colorado Springs.

>> Correct.

>> And gosh, what’s the numbers? Probably up to 60, or 70. It’s large.

>>I think we’re over 70 now. [LAUGH].

>> And their job is to, just to carry out the day to day operations of that.

>>Staff carries out the day to day operations. Staff is also a great generator of new ideas, and projects going forward which then should be brought to the board. I think there are two sides to this that can contribute to this moving forward: staff initiative, and a board vision. And I think it’s very important right now … 2014 is coming to a close, 2016 now is about filling in the details, trying some new things going forward, but really, as a board, the board should start focusing to the future, 2020, 2024.

>> Well, let’s talk about the board a little bit.

>>Sure.

>>Because that’ll be where your influence is the most. The whole volunteer structure, and the committee structure. Do you see that as something that still needs to evolve or what’s the temperature right now, the current structure of the board and all the committees within USA Swimming?

>> Well, I think it’s important to realize that those committees are divided up responsibility wise amongst the vice presidents. And I feel that we probably could do a better job of creating a leadership team amongst the vice presidents, the treasurer. And then reaching down to the committee chairs, and creating leadership teams within those committees. I feel within the committees is where we have the best outreach to the LSCs, and the clubs. If each committee would take on, creating subcommittees for its work, and reach out and involve more people at the LSC and club level, I think we can strengthen that volunteer side, because we can’t make this sport run without the volunteers.

>> Well, and there are a lot of volunteers. So, if I can kind of paraphrase, are you just saying that, you’d like to see a little more push down from the various committee heads?

>> Yes.

>>On the board, down to the local level.

>> I think we need to do a better job of pushing down our message, our achievements. We need to do a better job of pushing down our services. I believe the club president’s gathering last week, the presidents from some of our largest clubs were surprised at really the resources available to them through USA Swimming and Colorado Springs, through staff.

>> Very good. So, when you look at the infrastructure that you just talked about, which is more in the operations, and more in the clubs facilitating their team and their resources, and making sure that they’re successful. There’s a little bit broader aspects going on within USA Swimming, some of the initiatives, the foundation, Swim Today, can you kind of touch a little bit on your opinion of those?

>> I think the foundation maybe had some rocky moments getting started but now I think they have a clear role, and that is … saving lives comes first. Life skill, saving lives, and I think that is now with bringing athletes in, and doing the events around the country. Cullen certainly has been a great ambassador in that regard, and now we’re bringing in other people, Anthony, Janet, et cetera. So, the foundation I feel is in good hands. Our Swim Today effort is really new this year. Took a lot of time and effort in Matt Ferrell’s department to create that, and I think we can only look to positive growth there, but it’s an area that needs more work. Ultimately, Swim Today was started out of looking at Got Milk. And, as we make it an industry-wide initiative that touches all of our sponsors, all of our suppliers, to bring in and really make swimming the most popular sport in the United States, not just something that we read about every four years.

>> Yeah, the board approved that, they support that.

>> Yes.

>>And the board basically gave the blessing, and let’s move in those directions, and the staff takes over and implements those.

>> Yes, correct.

>>What about diversity? That was a big buzz, you know, a few years ago. Are we still making big gains in that area?

>> I think we could make better gains in that area. I think sometimes we have trouble understanding diversity. Coming from the West Coast where we have a high Asian population, when you say diversity, and include all Asians as minority, we get a distorted picture, and there are other places in the country where the numbers are going to be otherwise. But we have to identify diversity in areas, not just say there’s one size. I think that’s very important in swimming, by the way, that we realize in our organization, one size never fits all, not only it doesn’t fit all, it never fits all. And we need to be a little more specific, and targeted when we go into some of these initiatives. Can we do better in diversity? You bet.

>>And is diversity more just exposing the sport to those levels? And then offering opportunities?

>>When we talk about diversity, we also have to deal with the economics of diversity as we try to reach into the minority communities. We have whole school districts in the Los Angeles area that are on the federal school lunch program. Now, how do we go in, and say, oh by the way, you’re going to start paying monthly swim fees to be in this sport? And I think more exploration. We’ve have a great help in our area because we have the LA 84 Foundation as a result of the 1984 Olympic Games. But around the country we have to look for ways to help finance the program, because until you can bring the kids to the swimming pool, you can’t reach them.

>> Well, I’m glad you touched on the ‘84 Olympic money. Because it was a great, great bonus for Southern California. And you being there, seeing that, I would think that’d be an asset for you to take nationally to see if that could be replicated.

>> Absolutely. The experience of 1984 for all of us … we went in, because no one else wanted to host the Olympic Games. Peter Ueberroth took it on, and we put on a very successful Olympic Games that gave us a huge-

>>30 years ago, wow!

>>It’s 30 years ago, yes sir.

>> And you’re still playing with that money.

>> And the foundation still has retained that, and built that money, and does wonderful things throughout Southern California.

>> Well let’s talk about the Safe Sport. United States Swimming was brought into the real world. That there are some things going on nationally, and our sport was not immune to it.

>> Correct.

>>Where we needed to have more safeguards with young children and coaches. An initiative was set forward. What’s your temperature right now as far as where that is now from where it originated?

>> Well, again, I think we’ve moved the ball down the court quite a ways. There is more. I don’t think that we have any big surprises outstanding, but I think we always have to be watchful. Our first priority has to be the safety of our athletes, and also of our volunteers and coaches. It’s not just about the kids when you talk about Safe Sport, and if our initiative pushes forward, and leads the USOC to step up, and join in this game which I feel is imperative, I don’t think we should be carrying the burden alone. And I think the development of the program is only a positive for us.

>>Very good. And USA Swimming has always been the model NGB of the Olympic sports. So a lot of times, if they had-

>>What starts with us will reach forward.

>> So let’s hope that’s the case. What challenges do you see coming down the road here in the next two to four years?

>>Well, I think there are several things. As you know, our chief executive’s contract expires in 2016. I feel succession is something that we must prepare for. It’s not an option. And I strongly believe that we owe our sport, we owe our swimming family an open executive search. We didn’t find Chuck in swimming. We may find our next executive director in swimming, but we’re only going to know that if we do a full executive search. I feel that we have some big challenges coming up. NCAA and college swimming … set aside the O’Bannon case. Set aside the Northwestern case. There will be a new one coming forward. Actually it was in the September 1st Sports Illustrated issue I believe. Basically demanding that high school students be able to shop their goods, and get a contract.

>> Yeah, so, that’s a very broad statement. So let’s, let’s just drill that down for our audience.

>> Sure.

>> The issue on the table right now is if the NCAA would have to pay their athletes.

>> Correct.

>> And if they’re going to have to pay their athletes, then we have a budget issue that each administration is going to deal with.

>> Right.

>> Of which, swimming being an Olympic sport, might be on the chopping block in order to make budget too.

>> Correct.

>> Is this where we’re going?

>> I think we could very realistically could be in a situation where instead of worrying about our contracts for our postgrads, we could be worrying about sponsoring our 18- to 22-year-olds at the point that college scholarships become less, shall we say, prominent. And remember, right now there aren’t that many full men’s scholarships in swimming.

>> So what, what does the board do to prepare for those possible outcomes?

>> I think that makes a great discussion item for a board advanced retreat, whatever you would wish to call it. I don’t think there’s a magic answer, I can’t pull one out of my head, but I know we’re going to face growing issues over the future of Olympic collegiate sports.

>> Okay. And other challenges that you see?

>> Succession, Olympic sports. I think we have to work on our international relations, of how we relate to, not just the USOC, and the IOC, and FINA, but also UANA, the Pan Pac nations, etc. I think it’s very important that we always be aware of our place, our role, and that we reach out and be part of the international swimming community.

>> Have we not been?

>> Oh no, I think we do. I see that not as a new challenge, but as an ongoing challenge that we always are aware of. And I feel that’s very important at the board level.

>> Well, very good. Well, the elections are next week.

>> Yes.

>> Here we are in Jacksonville, so hopefully people will get a chance to learn a little bit about Mary Jo Swalley, and good luck with it. And whatever happens, I’m sure you’ll remain in our sport, and you’ve been a great contributor, so thank you.

>> Thank you, Brent.

>> You’re welcome. Well, this is Brent Rutemiller for Swimming World TV saying, if you wanna win, first help someone else win.

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Coach

9 years ago

This election is an extremely critical one. We are about to have a change of leadership on the board, and we are long overdue for a change with the executive director position.

Swimming World, thanks for bringing these interviews to your viewers.

I will be voting for Mary Jo. As you can see from the interviews, Mary Jo is specific with her answers showing that she is very in tune with the upcoming challenges we face. Probably because of her involvement with the LSC, of all the candidates, Mary Jo recognizes the day to day challenges that athletes, coaches, officials, and families face, and she also understands the importance of being proactive instead of reactive when it comes to leading large organizations.