Swimming Canada has officially posted the job listing for their newly-created National Team Director position. Click here to see more information about the position. This new spot comes as the brainchild of Pierre LaFontaine, who until now has served as both the head of the National Team High Performance coach and the CEO of Swimming Canada.
The job listing is pretty generic, and includes requirements like “Extensive experience coaching at the World Championships and Olympic Games level,” but make no mistake: this is a very non-generic coaching position.
There are incredibly unique challenges and opportunities that come along with this position. Canada has a big swimming infrastructure that has led to a recent surge in great young talent. The bulk of this talent, however, has begun to migrate across the border to train within the American college system.
But still, with the increase in focus (both competitively and financially) on elite performance in Canada, any coach in the world that isn’t named “Frank Busch” would be foolish to not at least consider the job.
Swimming Canada will be accepting applications through April 15th, 2012, with the new coach expecting to take over their duties on September 1, 2012. The timing coincides with the expectation for the level of candidate that Swimming Canada is hoping to hire – whoever it is should expect to be tied up with their current program through the Olympics.
Let the rumor-mill begin! Will 2012 Olympic Team coach Randy Bennett leave his setup at Island Swimming? Or maybe Tom Johnson, who coaches Brent Hayden among others. If the goal is to encourage more athletes to stay within their borders to train, it might surprise to see the Canadians look outside their own borders, but they would have to if they wanted someone with experience running a major National Team program.