Pat Hogan, USA Swimming’s Club Development Managing Director, has become the 2nd high-ranking USA Swimming employee to resign on Thursday. USA Swimming announced his resignation in a press release, and he joins Safe Sport Director Susan Woessner, who announced her resignation earlier in the day.
Hogan served in his role from 2003-2018.
According to USA Swimming’s release:
“He was responsible for overseeing a comprehensive effort to support and strengthen the club system in the USA, including a significant expansion of field services to member clubs and coaches, creation of a Facilities Development Department, as well as the establishment of several creative recognition and education programs targeted at clubs and coaches. During this period, USA Swimming membership has grown 24% and athlete and coach retention rates are at all-time highs.”
“Since the creation of the Club Development division, it has provided service to every club in the country from large to small through education, recognition programs, organizational consulting, performance consulting, camps and more,” USA Swimming CEO and President Tim Hinchey said. “Pat’s work in building the programs and services within this division will continue to be a key part of our future as an organization.”
Hogan, like Woessner, also had his resignation letter published (read here). Unlike Woessner, however, Hogan did not specify a reson for his resignation. He also didn’t address the reasons for his departure nor the rumors surrounding a relationship he had with a former swimmer. Hogan’s first wife began training for him at the age of 17, when Hogan was 27. The two later married, but Hogan told the New York Times in 2010 that both were adults when the relationship began.
The story hit ABC news in NYC. I expect more news networks to pick the story up over the next few days.
http://abc7ny.com/news/usa-swimming-directors-resign-after-report-of-sexual-abuse/3129645/?sf182881607=1
This is the biggest USA Swimming story – and Swim Info does not have it up
What is going on?
Who calls it Swiminfo anyways? And, that other site has an article just like this one.
Braden,
As I read through all of the news today, it strikes me that SwimSwam could do the swimming community a service by keeping the discussion about these issues at the top of the website. I think we all agree that this is an incredibly important issue and one that needs to stay at the forefront. With all of the meet results coming in this weekend, it would be easy for these conversations to get pushed down and not be seen. Would it be possible to keep something up front so we can all stay informed and have a (hopefully) civil and adult discourse?
Just a thought….
I have been officiating for over 20 years with great pride, my hopes are that the people at the top take their jobs seriously to protect OUR athletics. At this point I feel betrayed. OUR family has put a lot into this organization. My daughters, my wife and myself a father have promoted this great sport of swimming at the LSC level. When we sign our code of ethics agreement we say that if Anything is seems amiss USA-Swimming will pull our certification and should be until it is fully investigated by law enforcement not the attorneys at USA-Swimming. I am sure there are many officials that volunteer many hours for the sport are feeling the same way. What can… Read more »
I’m just gonna repost this comment by Stephen Gomez in the Woessner resignation article here because it made my head explode:
“Everett uyichama recommendation should have gotten him fired. If you don’t know what I am talking about I will post a link
http://www.espn.com/olympics/swimming/news/story?id=5319202”
https://staging.swimswam.com/safesport-director-susan-woessner-resigns-discloses-2007-kiss-hutchison/#comment-578933
The bottom line is that Chuck Wielgus, his board of directors and his coworkers oversaw and greatly enabled the worst sexual abuse scandal in the history of Olympic sports and they used millions of dollars of hard earned membership money to cover it up, attack critics and victims and to save their own sorry asses.
This is a great summary. Well done.
Uh, Chuck didn’t have “his” board of directors. They were elected by the membership.
Exactly, he thought they worked for him and the people elected forgot who they were supposed to be working for…the membership.
Chuck cannot hear you
When all the details of the financial malfeasance of membership money by the board, executives and lawyers to cover this mess up come out people are going to be outraged. Coaches, parents and swimmers really bust their asses to support their programs and their hard earned money is going towards this crap. You look at club development, there’s only one or two guys qualified to coach and run a program at a high level and they go around the country telling people how to run their programs. They’re paid by USA Swimming 90-100 k with benefits and retirement, while most coaches are lucky to get a 1/3rd of that salary and receive no benefits or retirement. It’s a joke we… Read more »
It’s time for the cost to clubs and swimmers to come down, way down and pay officials. AAU has better insurance and at a 1/4 the cost. More money needs to stay at the LSC’s. LSC’s need to work at bringing meet fees down. The cost of going to a swim meet is outragous. Now is the time to untangle the finances, break up the good ole boy network, decentralize back to the LSC’s and get more people at the top who are there for the love of the sport and not the money cache.
You want to pay officials and drop the cost of meets? Do you know how much it costs to run a meet? They don’t charge enough.
It’s all infuriating, every bit of it. But this article. . . . https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/16/investigation-usa-swimming-ignored-sexual-abuse-for-decades/ and it’s details on the money going to lobbyists to protect against statute of limitations being extended so that victims of abuse could get some justice? Our membership money going to fund that? I’m outraged already.
if we can just get Dale Neuburger to resign then today would be a good day
Neuberger doesn’t work for USA Swimming and is an ex officio member of Board (as Past President). He is a FINA bureau member and is set in that spot until 2021. Good luck trying to get him to give that up. And FINA has never caved into pressure to force those in high places to leave.
Bigger issues – can Mike Unger survive this?
Word from the inside is that Unger won’t survive.
Good Lord! Who did he kiss??!
A former athlete he coached. Every day they kiss.
Correction…. Pat Hogan began dating Julie Gindon when she was a teen and she was his swimmer. Some have witnessed them together putting her age as early as 15. They married when she was 18. Julie Ginden Sears is a contributor to USA Swimming and has been for years. Now that Pat Hogan has resigned, I wonder is she will speak up finally.