USA Swimming Launches #OfficiallyAwesome Campaign to Attract Officials

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

USA Swimming launched a new social media campaign today to highlight the benefits of becoming a swimming official. The campaign was designed in collaboration with the Officials’ Committee, and aims to attract new officials and retain existing officials.

The light-hearted campaign provides a unique insight into the lives of officials, their values and focuses heavily on the benefits of being an official. The posts will be a mixture of fun, inspirational, serious and even lightly sarcastic at times.

“Through this campaign, we wanted to show another side of officiating and the friendships, comradery and sense of pride we share together,” said Jim Holcomb, USA Swimming Officials’ Committee Chair from El Paso, Texas. “Providing a service to the athletes is a role we take seriously, yet we also manage to have a great experience in the process. We even poke some fun at ourselves a bit on some of the ‘perks’ and quirks of being an official.”

The campaign will be ongoing throughout the year through USA Swimming social accounts on Facebook and Twitter, and also supported through the Officials’ Committee Facebook page. We encourage ongoing posts from the 14,000 swimming officials across the country.

“These officials volunteer their time to help every meet run for the athletes and coaches, so getting the swimming community to share these posts will give them a pat on the back and provide encouragement to get involved,” said Dan McAllen, USA Swimming Program Operations Vice Chair and member of the Board of Directors from Fallbrook, California. “Getting officials involved is vital to the future of the sport, so we wanted to tell the story in a way that encourages people to come forward and be part of the great culture of swimming officials.”

The concept for the campaign originated at the 2016 We ARRE Mentors Officials workshop in Chicago in a collaboration with the USA Swimming staff and the 90 attendees of the workshop. That mentor workshop was spearheaded by Melissa Hellervik-Bing of Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Gina Mensay, USA Swimming Member Services Program Manager.

There was also a group brainstorming exercise where the officials attending the workshop wrote many of the taglines for the posts.

“The energy of the group in Chicago was contagious in helping create this campaign and make it our own,” said Hellervik-Bing. “Throughout the weekend workshop, this group showed what it takes to be a mentor and now there is also a campaign to help spread it to others.”

Fans, officials and future officials can follow the campaign at #OfficiallyAwesome on Facebook and Twitter.

Press release courtesy of USA Swimming,

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Ed Eckels

7 years ago

I’ve been an official for five years. Best seat in the house.

Matt

7 years ago

USA swimming needs to PAY the officials like high school. It is the only sport where officials don’t get paid even at a high level. In fact many LSC have even started to forbid teams from paying officials. Isn’t this America, a capitalist nation?

Jennifer Lewis

7 years ago

I was an official until this most recent year when as I was testing to reup. I noticed a new requirement I just didn’t want to have to comply with. This new requirement took the general lookout for bullying and coach misconduct requirement to new heights by requiring that we file written reports. I can understand why the written report was felt needed but I was frankly not interested in being the conduct and morality police. There was no “time span” put on this requirement. Therefore it can include complaints by parents to you that the coach is being harsher on their kid for whatever reason, does it include your swimmer or another telling you they are hearing a kid was bullied in the locker room? The requirements were WAY to broad and had no guidance. So you file a report on a coach and now the coach treats your swimmer negatively. Or, you file a report on bullying and your kid is ostracized as a nark. These two types of incidents ocurred in the year I was an official and I did nothing because I wasn’t comfortable acting without actually witnessing any of the conduct. There is no guidance on where this responsibility begins and ends or any consideration to its effect on that official’s own kid. I just was to officiate strokes and turns at the actual meet!