My Tostito's Fiesta Bowl only cost about three bucks... theirs was a lot more!

Paid country club memberships at multiple clubs. $1200 at a strip club. $27,000 a year as a "car allowance." A birthday party costing $33 grand. $95k for the chance to play a round of gold with Jack Nicklaus... Sounds nice, doesn't it? Those are just a few of the perks that the shirt and tie guys who run the BCS seem to regularly pay out on someone else's dime, according to the recent corruption report on the Fiesta Bowl.

Heck, Fiesta Bowl CEO John Junker was finally fired for, among other things, reimbursing employees for political contributions! Really? The heads of sporting organizations might be engaged in corrupt political dealings?  I can't imagine such a thing!?

Mr. Junker already has big plans for the next World Championships.  He is weaseling his way onto the FINA Bureau as we speak.  Won't he fit right in?

Even if you already thought the BCS system was ridiculous, your mind will be blown when you read this article at Yahoo! Sports:  BCS Conducts Shallow Probe as the Party Rages On.  No, really.  Read it.  This one too, that outlines some of the details of the crazy spending spree.  The full report is here.

An excerpt:

If Emmert (NCAA President Mark Emmert) is any kind of leader, he should be furious right now with the details of the Fiesta Bowl report. Bowls’ ability to buy favor with administrators is indefensible. He should demand a full investigation into the bowl business and seize control of the sport’s postseason from these third-party businessmen.

After all, where does the Fiesta get all this money to waste? From the schools, of course (and then, in part, taxpayers and student fees)...

The BCS cuts to the very core of what’s wrong with college athletics – the arrogance and entitlement of the people in charge.

Hey, at least we aren't USA Swimming!

I have read a lot of comments on various articles that warn us swimmers that maybe we don't want to be a mainstream, big-time sport.  Maybe we don't want swimming to have the attraction of so much profit that it will lure creeps like these guys into bringing their profit-at-all-cost CEO mentalities to running the show for us.  Many would say, with all of the recent problems at USA Swimming and with FINA, that we are already there.  Is there something that attracts these people to sports in particular, or is this just our version of the evils of the corporate world?  

...of course, the Fiesta Bowl as an organization didn't really break any laws so there probably won't be any charges filed anyway.   

The Battle of Who Could Know Less

Over the weekend, there were numerous updates to the "Splash of Truth" (SOT) website. As they have uploaded depositions and articles, three things have become readily apparent:


1. When you volunteer and/or work at a high level for USA Swimming, you have a remarkable inability to remember much of anything that happened while you were there.

2. None of the strongest accusations in the SOT e-mails are verified by what has been posted so far.

3. Nobody but Tony Austin and I want to touch any of this with a ten foot pole. What else is new?

The latest deposition posted is that of Dale Neuberger. Neuberger served as President of USA Swimming from 1998-2002 and has been on the board in some capacity since 1990. Much like Executive Director Chuck Wielgus, there is much that Neuberger does not remember. This, much like the previous depositions, makes for extremely boring reading, because as any questions relating to sexual misconduct of coaches come up, Dale simply can't remember or doesn't know anything. Let me give you a few examples. As in my previous blog, I have inserted the name of the lawyer (Jonathan Little) and Neuberger for clarity:


Little: Were you on the USA Swimming board of directors in 1993?
Neuberger: Yes.
Little: Do you recall any discussions about Mitch Ivey in 1993?
Neuberger: No.
Little: So is it your recollection that there were no discussions of Mitch Ivey after he was on ESPN Outside The Lines in 1993?
Neuberger: If Mr. Ivey was part of a television broadcast, I'm not aware of it.

Mitch Ivey was fired as the swimming coach at the University of Florida in 1993 after ESPN's Outside the Lines featured several of his former athletes giving accounts of his sexually inappropriate behavior. I found an article about the program in the SI Vault that cited one of his athletes saying he made sexual advances on her when she was 15. She ended up marrying him at age 18, when he was 31 but divorced him after discovering he had a relationship with another 17 year old swimmer.


Let me excerpt another exchange that shows Neuberger's apparent "cluelessness":


Little: Do you know who Sean Hutchison is? 
Neuberger: I do. 
Little: Who is he? 
Neuberger He's a USA Swimming coach, member.                                                                    
Little: Where does he currently work? 
Neuberger:  I don't know. 
Little: Does he work for the Fast Swim Club in Fullerton, California? 
Neuberger I don't know his location of employment at this point.  


Keep in mind this was January 7th, when everyone was wondering whether Sean Hutchison would continue on after rumors floated about his involvement with a swimmer. Neuberger goes on to say he has little idea of how the National Post Graduate Centers were set up, their funding, or how coaches were chosen. But, how should we expect him to, he's only on the board, right?


Things get quite heated and both Mr. Little and the attorney for USA Swimming, Jean Weil, get very frustrated. Little shows his frustration with this line of questioning:



Little: Do you take drugs, Mr. Neuburger, any kind of  psychiatric drugs? 
Neuberger: No. 
MS. WEIL:  Do you, Mr. Little? 
Little: Are you under the influence of alcohol in this deposition? 
Neuberger: No. 
Little: Are you under the influence of anything that could impair your memory? 
Neuberger: No. 


Which brings us full circle. USA Swimming members be alarmed that the people at the very top of the organization seemingly know very little about very important parts of the operation. Still, there is nothing concrete that I have read so far that validates a cover-up or any of the far more serious charges. The question now becomes, how long do we wait for SOT to prove it?

A Little Relief from Apple's Arrogance

I have been pretty loyal to Apple since I got my first iPod. I have had my iPhone for almost two years now, and it has always bothered me that when I am browsing the web it doesn't read flash. I guess there is some kind of geek tech pissing contest going on between Adobe and Apple about whose code is best or something.

It has bothered me enough that if my contract was up for my phone I would switch to Android right now and when I think about getting a tablet I really want to try something else.

When my wife got an iPad for Christmas, I honestly could have cared less. Why bother browsing on a fancy tablet if most of my favorite sites are half blank and none of the videos will play? Swimming World is pretty much a list of dead links and a few ads on an iPad, which sucks because I spend a lot of time there. Also, a lot of buttons and drop down menus don't seem to work correctly without flash either.

A few months ago I downloaded the Skyfire web browser to my phone because it promised it could play flash video. I was disappointed at first because it was very limited in what it could play, but they have been constantly updating.

This morning I pulled up swimmingworld.tv and the videos actually played! Woo hoo!! I am pumped to go home and load it to the iPad tonight. Finally, a little relief!





Apple, Skyfire just saved your butt. I was totally ready to bail on my iPhone. But I will warn you... video is not enough. I won't be buying myself an iPad until you get over yourself and allow me to see web pages the way they were intended. I would rather give my money to a company that values my user experience more than their own ego.

If you want flash video to play on your iPhone or iPad, I can now strongly recommend downloading the Skyfire web browser from the app store. They really are helping to make the swimgeek experience more complete.

31 years?!

In 1980 the Olympics were boycotted; KISS released Unmasked, their last album with the original line-up of Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter; and The Empire Strikes Back was in theaters, which caused every annoying geek on the playground to impersonate Yoda way too much and made an entire generation say "eeewwww" in unison when we realized a few years later that Luke Skywalker had kissed his sister in a way that was not really okay.




1980 was the last time Cal's men won an NCAA Swimming and Diving Championship. Congrats boys. You deserve to celebrate your 2011 title. You swam your hearts out.

1980 was also the beginning of the longest winning streak in any NCAA sport at any level. That streak ended this weekend when Denison's men snuck past the Kenyon Lords by one point at D3 Nats. One point! 31 years!

I can't imagine that it was as awesome to be a swim fan in 1980 as it is now. I marvel at how amazing it is to be able to follow along through media that is so abundant.

Oh yeah, by the way, I won the podium pursuit picks. Yay! OldWahooVA and Smurphy had me a little scared there after day two. I owe you guys a tall one if we ever meet. I was having such a good time picking my top 3 swimmers this year that I didn't even bother to make a March Madness bracket. Podium Pursuit has announced that they are making some changes next month. I am excited to see what they come up with. If you haven't been playing, be sure to start an account before Worlds. It is more fun than you might think.

Chuck Wielgus Doesn't Know Anything (and other things I learned from the USA Swimming Depositions)

In the past 24 hours, "Splash of Truth" (hereafter I will to he/she/them as 'SOT') has begun posting the depositions from Jane Doe vs USA Swimming. After giving each of the posted depositions at least a cursory reading, I am struck by a consistent theme throughout.  They are extremely boring reading, mostly because the witnesses being deposed seem to have a very foggy memory about anything related to the case.

As of this posting, SOT has posted four depositions. One, by Chuck Wielgus, is in two parts, alongside depositions by Christine Schemmel, Ross Wales and Ron Van Pool. Schemmel, for those unaware, is officially titled "Business Operations Administrative Assistant" and was charged by Wielgus with taking any sexual abuse complaints to the law firm HRO for investigation. Wales is deposed as a former USA Swimming Board member, the same for Van Pool.

Wielgus' is by the far the longest and most confounding deposition. It's pretty amazing the things that he claims not to know throughout the deposition. Let me excerpt a few exchanges as they appear in the deposition. In the first one Allard (the attorney representing the anonymous party suing USA Swimming) is asking Wielgus the names of USA Swimming Board members, whom he reports to as Executive Director. I've inserted their names for clarity in excerpting these exchanges:

Wielgus: And there are -- Would you like me  to try to name the others?
Allard: Yes, please.
Wielgus: I may fail this quiz.
Allard: That's okay.  You only came here with the contents of your brain that you woke up with this morning.  So that's okay.
Wielgus: There's not much there.

Later Allard asks Wielgus a question about ASCA:

Allard: Let's talk about ASCA for a minute.  Who is the president of that organization currently?
Wielgus: I'm embarrassed to say I don't know


When the topic turns to Pat Hogan's responsibility for administering the CPP (Child Protection Policy), Wielgus seems to qualify his putting him in that position:

Allard: And who appointed him to that position vis-a-vis the child protection policy?
Wielgus: To the staff liaison position?
Allard: Yes.
Wielgus: I probably did that.

Later on, Wielgus claims that he doesn't remember the contents of e-mail exchanges from a couple of days before the deposition with the swimmer who wrote him about coach Andy King originally in 2003.

The last and most troubling theme of the depositions is the connection between USA Swimming and USSIC. USSIC is a captive insurance company, meaning that it was founded to insure both USA Swimming and its members. All USA Swimming members have dues going to the USSIC. Throughout the testimony, it is revealed that the USSIC board is almost entirely made up of former USA Swimming board members. In Ross Wales testimony, he is protected from answering questions about USSIC and there is contention between the lawyers as to whether USSIC is a defendant alongside USA Swimming in this case. I am curious to see how this is resolved.

Even as I write this blog, the site is being rapidly updated. To view all the material I'm discussing and citing, click on the following link and please feel free to respond in the comments section.

Men's D1. I'm all over it.

Who's in the lead after day 1 of the men's D1 NCAA meet?

ME!

I aced the pick on the 50 free with all three spots in order, picked the winner of the IM, and named two of the three in the 500.

I am feeling pretty good about today. Log in to podium pursuit and join The Viking Ship if you think you have a chance to catch me. Join in the fun.

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