A Short History of WSCA Advocacy

by Dr. Jon Rudd, President, WSCA and George Block, Vice-President, WSCA

Two Beginnings

As has often been the case, Peter Daland was ahead of his time. In 1966, Coach Daland saw the need for a clear, unified, and organized "coaches' voice" at the international level of our sport. However, organizing this proved impossible with only international mail and the occasional (costly) international call available to coaches at that time. Meeting at international meets was the only time to achieve this, and yet it is often the worst time to gather coaches together with any kind of intent. As such, the first iteration of the WSCA failed.

In 1989, Coach Yutaka Terao, a swim school multi-millionaire coach from Japan, led the effort to re-start the WSCA. His insight, energy, and personal funding allowed the WSCA to be reborn. The other initial officers at this time were Coaches Peter Daland and John Leonard from the US and Paul Quinlan of Australia. Coaches didn't recognize it at the time, but the funding for WSCA was both precarious and essential, because coaches worldwide needed advocacy, but nobody really wanted to pay for it.

The original intent back in 1989 was to work with our world governing body, very much as it is now - to expand and formalize a way for coaches to offer input on critical decisions in swimming. Yutaka, revolutionary by the standards of the FINA that was in place at that time, was quite conservative and was insistent on working in a consultative and gentle fashion. The FINA of those times loosely cooperated, until Terao passed away.

Without Coach Terao's funding, the WSCA was ‘adopted’ by the US, Australia and Germany. When the US held the presidency, the ‘back office’ was provided by ASCA, and when Australia held the presidency, the ASCTA provided the back office; this financial support allowed WSCA to survive economically while damaging the perception of WSCA with coaches of other nations, who came to view it as merely a branch of ASCA or the ASCTA.

Coaches Daland (US) and Alan Thompson (AU) became the next WSCA Presidents. Both took a more ‘confrontational approach’ in their work, particularly when it became apparent at the 1994 World Championships that those who were the custodians of our sport would only offer lip service to the fighting of what was clear and obvious doping.

The Doping Wars

The 1994 World Championships was the beginning of this period. For the next 20 years, anti-doping was the focus of WSCA advocacy. FINA President Larfaoui of Algeria had good intentions, but ones that did not seem to be entirely shared by the Executive Director in place at that time, who frequently tried to ‘gently encourage’ the WSCA Presidents or Coaches' Associations to ‘think differently’, but generally speaking, these attempts failed.

During his Presidency, Alan Thompson took a decisive and, at times, adversarial role of WSCA versus FINA. Doping was the number one issue, and the importance of an independent ‘coaches voice’ was a close second.

In retrospect, coaches did not understand the importance and power of the coaches' voice at that time. It seemed obvious to those involved that when people nodded, they understood, when what they wanted to do in reality was move on to the next topic. Some may think that this is still the way. A majority of coaches are generally poor at seeing the big picture in sporting politics; training and technique are still more engaging and captivating topics for most.

The WSCA boards were talking to themselves at this time and thought they were changing the world, when in fact, they were blind to reality.

Plastic Bag Suits

The great swimsuit battle was an entertaining distraction from doping. It also gave our world governing body at that time an opening to appear to listen to coaches. A lot of coaches around the world supported this distraction, which made it very popular.

Looking back, it was incredibly naïve of those of us working in the swimming coaching profession at that time.

Fran Crippen's Death and the ISL

After the death of Fran Crippen in a FINA Open Water event, the majority of coaches in the US lost all naïve thoughts about FINA and believed that blowing it up and starting over, if possible, was the only way for meaningful change. The US representatives stopped speaking to the FINA leadership - and vice versa.

When FINA attempted to stand in the way of athletes when it came to participating in the ISL, this became the final straw for many coaches worldwide. It also became the last straw for the FINA leadership as it was; it was time for change and evolution.

What coaches learned through this period is that swimming needs a strong, ethical, and competent world governing body as a balance for organizations like the ISL. At the top end of world swimming, we want a balance of power, not a monopoly. The newly branded ‘World Aquatics’ that rose from the ashes of an old and defunct FINA seems to understand this.

Current Status

The current World Aquatics President, Captain Husain Al Musallam, ran for office as a reformer. As of now, he has delivered on his promises and hired a staff that can execute his reform mandate. The World Aquatics Executive Director, Brent Nowicki, was the US attorney to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. He has a deep understanding of both the politics of international sport and the ultimate legal process. He approaches problems with an attorney's mind and listens to coaches closely and carefully.

WSCA had a purpose with anti-doping. It was strongest then. It meant and represented something to coaches all over the world. Now, WSCA has pushed anti-doping to the back burner as WADA is handling this battle worldwide with many more resources than we could ever bring.

Corruption is the biggest battle in the swimming world (and probably the world as a whole) today.  World Aquatics must make this the next pillar of rebuilding World Aquatics' foundation. Unfortunately, the old FINA had a long history of turning a blind eye to corruption and, some would say, using it politically.

Today, we believe that corruption is holding back the performances of the developing aquatics world. Next month, we will write about WSCA's ideas for eliminating structural corruption from aquatics events while building a new generation of heroes worldwide.