I am totally not surprised. I grew up and swam in a small town and the families camped or stayed with our mom mainly in motels or just drove home after the meets. We never really had the senior style swimming when the HS swimmers had separate workouts, coaches, and five day meets. ( We only had seasonal HS swimming once we got that age. ) So I was surprised as a mother of grade school kids talking to a mother my age originally from Chicago at a music camp. She said her kids would never swim like that as the coaches were pursuing relationships and traveled with the teens and she said the parents had no clue what was going on at the hotels..I was horrified as my own experience was so family oriented... but keeping that in mind
when my daughter about 12myears,old, late 90s, got an abusive coach who hit them in practice. And he was the hs science teacher! I tried,to pull my daughter out but the head coach got really defensive and wouldnt give her a different coach..so she finished a couple more months with strict orders he couldnt touch the kids. The parents werent allowed to watch,so I didnt know. But I didn't put up with that, and I wanted my daughter to know immediately that was not ok behavior. I guess the coach had been working up to this over a few years, a lot of kids had quit swimming, but new ones kept coming so no one cared... I called the local USS and they said there was no code of conduct for coaches either locally or nationally... because the coaches refused to vote for it at the national meetings!...the other staff thought it was very surprising that a simple code of conduct couldn't be enacted, considering you are dealing with children.and that was that. I dont know why they gave the coaches all the power in the national swim association, that was stupid.. The local rep was sympathetic but her hands were tied. Anyway we just changed teams to a more family oriented, open practices, nice coaches and never looked back. She swam in college, and does lots of sports now.....The former coach was encouraged to choose a different career, he did, but I heard he has 4 kids now, which makes my skin crawl..
I am totally not surprised. I grew up and swam in a small town and the families camped or stayed with our mom mainly in motels or just drove home after the meets. We never really had the senior style swimming when the HS swimmers had separate workouts, coaches, and five day meets. ( We only had seasonal HS swimming once we got that age. ) So I was surprised as a mother of grade school kids talking to a mother my age originally from Chicago at a music camp. She said her kids would never swim like that as the coaches were pursuing relationships and traveled with the teens and she said the parents had no clue what was going on at the hotels..I was horrified as my own experience was so family oriented... but keeping that in mind
when my daughter about 12myears,old, late 90s, got an abusive coach who hit them in practice. And he was the hs science teacher! I tried,to pull my daughter out but the head coach got really defensive and wouldnt give her a different coach..so she finished a couple more months with strict orders he couldnt touch the kids. The parents werent allowed to watch,so I didnt know. But I didn't put up with that, and I wanted my daughter to know immediately that was not ok behavior. I guess the coach had been working up to this over a few years, a lot of kids had quit swimming, but new ones kept coming so no one cared... I called the local USS and they said there was no code of conduct for coaches either locally or nationally... because the coaches refused to vote for it at the national meetings!...the other staff thought it was very surprising that a simple code of conduct couldn't be enacted, considering you are dealing with children.and that was that. I dont know why they gave the coaches all the power in the national swim association, that was stupid.. The local rep was sympathetic but her hands were tied. Anyway we just changed teams to a more family oriented, open practices, nice coaches and never looked back. She swam in college, and does lots of sports now.....The former coach was encouraged to choose a different career, he did, but I heard he has 4 kids now, which makes my skin crawl..
