A report by the Southern California News Group says USA Swimming has ignored, covered up or refused to investigate sexual abuse allegations against coaches in relation to hundreds of swimmers over decades.
The SCNG report is extensive, and you can read it in its entirety on the website of The Orange County Register here. Much of it implicates former CEO Chuck Wielgus, who has been widely criticized for USA Swimming’s handling of sexual abuse claims under his leadership, but the report also points fingers at other officials still in place.
A few of the biggest key allegations raised in the SCNG report:
- That “top USA Swimming executives, board members, top officials and coaches” knew about sexually predatory coaches for years, but did not pursue any action against them. The report cites multiple high-profile cases, including Rick Curl and Mitch Ivey.
- That USA Swimming has paid $77,627 to lobbying firms to lobby against California legislation that would make it easier for sexual abuse victims to sue their abusers and organizations that employed them – which would include USA Swimming or USA Swimming clubs in the case of abusive coaches.
- That USA Swimming keeps a list of “flagged” coaches and officials who have been arrested or accused by law enforcement of sex crimes but have not yet been disciplined by USA Swimming. The report says the “flagged” list is not available to the public, and that of 32 people on the flagged list in 2010, only six were ultimately banned by USA Swimming. This existence of this list has been known in the past, with the explanation that it is made up of known non-members that USA Swimming doesn’t have authority to ban until they apply for membership.
We asked USA Swimming about these allegations but have not yet received a response. When current CEO Tim Hinchey took over last summer, we interviewed him and asked what he thought about the criticism of Wielgus and how he would lead in the area of sexual abuse by coaches and officials. Hinchey said he “didn’t have a whole lot of knowledge” about the situation but would be getting up to speed with it as soon as he could. We’ve asked USA Swimming multiple times since then to speak with Hinchey about the issue, but have not received a response.
The SCNG report cites attorney Bob Allard, who has represented multiple victims of sexual abuse within the sport, and is currently representing Olympian Ariana Kukors, who says she was groomed and sexually abused from the age of 13 by her longtime coach Sean Hutchison. Allard is calling for the immediate removal of all of USA Swimming’s executive leadership. That would include COO Mike Unger, Managing Director Pat Hogan, Executive Director Debbie Hesse, Managing Director Lindsay Mintenko and Safe Sport Director Susan Woessner.
The report also quotes Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an Olympic swimmer and outspoken advocate for women in sports. Hogshead-Makar says there are “still too many abusive coaches who are either still coaching [or] still in the Hall of Fame.” She also alleges that coaches have been “blackballed” for advocating for athletes and trying to push back against unethical coaches.
In another troubling piece of the report, Hogshead-Makar says she once asked Woessner why USA Swimming wasn’t looking into sexual misconduct allegations leveled at a former U.S. Olympic coach. Hogshead-Makar says Woessner asked “what does it matter?” because the coach in question was no longer coaching young swimmers.
The SCNG report alleges that USA Swimming has covered up abuse to protect its brand, quoting swim coach Dia Rianda calling Safe Sport “a complete farce.” Rianda – who says she reported inappropriate behavior by a coach and was ultimately fired for it – says that “USA Swimming is all about protecting their brand in any way they possibly can.”
Even more concerning are legal documents in which Wielgus seems to admit that protecting young swimmers has never been the organization’s top priority. The OCR report includes a 2010 deposition of Wielgus in which the former USA Swimming executive was asked if protecting young swimmers from sexual abuse was USA Swimming’s top goal. “No I would not,” Wielgus said. “… I would say that has never been our number one goal.”
The report also lists several major payments from USA Swimming to outside firms connected to sexual abuse allegations. The story says USA Swimming spent $7.45 million on legal fees between the years 2006 and 2016, a number nearly ten times what USA Track & Field paid over the same period. The story also tracks a six-figure payment to a Denver-based public relations firm specializing in “crisis communication” to help clubs deal with sexual abuse scandals. That’s in addition to the $77,000+ payment to a California lobbying firm to lobby against the legislation that would extend the statute of limitations, allowing abuse victims more time to take legal action against their abusers.
Another name that gets brought up in the report is that of Pat Hogan, USA Swimming’s club development managing director. According to a June 2010 deposition, Wielgus said Hogan was the USA Swimming employee with the most knowledge regarding the organization’s child protection program. In the same deposition, Wielgus was questioned about Hogan’s first wife, who began training for him at the age of 17. Hogan was 27. The two eventually began dating, later married and then divorced. Wielgus said he never questioned Hogan about his relationship with his first wife, but would only say the relationship “began to develop” after she was 18.
Hogan spoke on that relationship in a 2010 New York Times piece, saying both were adults when the relationship began. “I conducted myself with complete honor and integrity in my relationship with my former wife,” Hogan said in the Times. “Our relationship, which developed after she was 18 and I was a young man in my 20s, always had the full knowledge and blessing of her parents”
Chuck Wielgus was in charge during the “decades” that sexual abuse when on.
Now, the new CEO Tim Hinchley has to deal with the aftermath. I hope he know how to handle a crisis like this.
“USA Swimming has paid $77,627 to lobbying firms to lobby against California legislation that would make it easier for sexual abuse victims to sue their abusers and organizations that employed them”
I know this is probably the least of the myriad of issues highlighted above, but this REALLY makes me angry. HOW IN THE WORLD can USA Swimming even begin to justify spending money to oppose legislation that aims to help victims of sexual abuse get some semblance of justice, aside from purely selfish motivations of covering their own asses because of the well-documented history of abhorrent behavior within the organization. A move like that just goes to show that USA Swimming is 1) guilty of and party to exacerbating… Read more »
Googlin’ “Senate Bill 131 swimswam” is a fun blast from the past. The first ones that came up, chronologically:
https://staging.swimswam.com/usa-swimming-hires-lobbying-firm-to-oppose-california-billl-sb-131/#!parentId=91955
https://staging.swimswam.com/california-bill-sb-131-passes-assembly-despite-usa-swimming-catholic-church-lobbying/
https://staging.swimswam.com/california-senate-confirms-amendments-sb-131-sent-governor-signature/
https://staging.swimswam.com/california-governor-jerry-brown-vetoes-sb-131/
https://staging.swimswam.com/usa-swimming-currently-considering-opposition-new-california-child-abuse-legislation/
https://staging.swimswam.com/usa-swimming-spent-77627-20-lobbying-sb-131-2013-1/
idk why this didn’t get more coverage back then. LITERALLY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND USA SWIMMING WERE UNITED AGAINST THE BILL. No sordid histories there, no sir.
If I’m Hinchey, I clean house immediately. Why keep some of these board members and employees around? You mentioned Hogan coaching the 17-year-old and eventually marrying her. That’s very suspicious, but the worst of Hogan’s misdeeds was his glowing recommendation of his friend and former USA National Team Director, Everett Uchiyama, to be the Aquatics Director at the Country Club of Colorado after being fired from USA Swimming for sexually abusing a 13-year-old athlete he previously coached in California. In my opinion, and the opinion of others with at least half a brain, Hogan then lied under oath in a sworn deposition and said he didn’t know the reasons for Uchiyama’s departure. The reasons for Uchiyama’s departure were widely known… Read more »
USA Swimming has to establish rules that must be followed by all age group swim clubs and all coaches, regarding:
1. No unsupervised (without parents) socializing with swimmers outside practices
2. Every club that has female age group swimmers must have at least one female coach
3. Rules for team trips away, including meets and training trips) from home (parents chaperoning)
4. Rules must be clearly communicated to parents and parents must also take responsibility to make sure they are enforced
etc.
Usa swimming already has rules that cover 1,2 and 4. Three makes the assumption that only male Coaches sexually asssailt girls. The banned list has female coaches that have been banned for misconduct against girls and boys and had male coaches that have been
Banned for sexual misconduct toward boys. The “two deep” rules is a better solution.
I’m glad this is finally coming into the mainstream eye. This is absolutely deplorable and unacceptable, but not surprising at all for anyone who’s been following swim news the past few years. I fully support Allard’s demands that all leadership be removed. People should be losing jobs over this. Some of them should do jail time over this.
It’s a shame Wielgus isn’t around to account for the greed and apathy he and his organization have shown. The closest thing he saw to a punishment was having his name withdrawn from Hall of Fame consideration.
The person that comes out looking like the best internal advocate in the piece is David Berkoff. (Who, like, comments here, so, hi!)
But it didn’t mention his continued support of Joe Bernal, which just really twists that story up even more. The one good guy, still sorta compromised by this!
The report also mentions Bill Jewell and Mark Schubert for things unrelated to the recent Ariana Kukors case, where both dudes also look pretty bad. There are just so many examples!
Can you give any examples of his continued support of Bernal? My memory is terrible, but I can only recall David claiming surprise since he did not ever see that side of Bernal and had no knowledge of it. Maybe I missed something.
The situation that Joe got nailed for happened decades after David swam for Joe. What am I missing?
When Bernal was removed from his club in February 2016, he commented here that: “Joe was a wonderful mentor and coach. He took me from being an underachiever to a world beater. He made swimming fun.” (Link.)
He did have some more fleshed-out comments that you reference in an article in the Boston Globe in September 2016, after Bernal basically ran away after being banned. (Link.)
Maybe “continued support” isn’t the right thing for me to say given his comments are pretty old, but idk, that first one rubbed me as a bit odd and unnecessary and the Globe article still shows plenty of wavering. He very well may have fully…disowned? Bernal in… Read more »
I’d agree that the “continued supprt” comment WASN’T the right thing for you to say. I’d also agree that it was irresponsible. Any number of people that read your comment have likely now taken that as truth and will make judgments moving forward based upon it. David has been one of the good guys in this. And your poorly-worded comment may have tarnished his rep to some. I wish people would be more thoughtful and careful here and on social media.
Misses my larger point, but sure man, whatever works.
I dont quite understand your comment Steve. I was caught by surprise by Bernal’s misconduct. I never witnessed any sexual misconduct by Bernal when I swam for him betwen 1994 and 1990. If I had I would have left the team. I stated publicly that I had no reason to doubt the claims and believed that the board of review system works and supported USAS’s decision. Please tell me how that is being supportive.
I have another comment below that gets into it a bit more, but basically you were the one person in the OCR report that came across looking like he actually wanted to do something about abuse, but who also has shown how it’s hard for those with direct relationships with abusers to fully hold them accountable. My point is less a direct rebuke of you – you’re still the guy that said those things back in 2010, still the guy that was on the board – and more of how even people that want to do something can have that mission dampened by history.
I linked below to the first SwimSwam post when Bernal was first removed from Gators, where… Read more »
You have no idea what you are taking about. When someone you considered a mentor for years turns out to be someone different let’s see how much of a tough guy YOU are and how quickly you are to castigate him or her. It’s easy to be a gadfly about everything bad in our sport when you have no connection to a person who does something wrong. It’s not easy to understand how someone who did so much for you could hurt someone else. Joe is out of the sport because he broke the rules and harmed a swimmer. I don’t know the story and I don’t have any reason to not believe it.
OK, first off I know it’s obviously not easy to kind of “step back” and literally be able to see *yourself* as a generalization of a problem as I proposed above. But your response does track with my “general point” almost perfectly.
Allow me a digression, if you will. I’ve got a brother who’s a cop. I’ve had discussions with his girlfriend about a lot of the recent…kerfuffles…with citizens being killed by law enforcement officers recently. I come down incredibly hard on police officers in those cases, and the biggest disagreements she and I ever have is over our hypothetical response(s) if my brother ever ends up making a mistake and unlawfully kills someone. (My brother’s good at his… Read more »
The article was mostly just old news. Having said that i wouldn’t mind if it was used to bring new leadership in. The new guy appears to be ignoring the issue just like Chuck did. New boss …..same as the old boos
This is something that http://www.swimswam.com has been reporting on for a while. Perhaps this reporting will bring the story to a wider audience. But sadly, this is all stuff that we have known and been reading about for a long time.
BTW, in case anyone is wondering: Rick Curl, who was sentenced to a seven-year stretch in Maryland, was released after serving only three years. Word is that he is doing well in the world outside of swimming. Coaches who know him have told others “it’s old news, it’s time to move on.” That dude lawyered-up really well if all he got was a 7 year sentence in the first place, and if he was released… Read more »