Shane Tusup, coach and husband to world and Olympic champ Katinka Hosszu, directed a profanity-laden verbal outburst towards officials and meet organizers at an age group meet in Hungary, local media report.
24.hu reports that Tusup, upset about what he considered an unfair start to a race, gave meet officials two middle fingers and shouted profanities at them during a race. You can read the full account in its original Hungarian here.
Tusup is specifically accused of yelling “[expletive deleted] Mr. Pass” at Ferenc Pass, a local Hungarian coach and the organizer of the meet as well as Hosszu’s former coach. The Fish Bowl Cup meet, which has age groups from roughly 9 & under to 17 & over, took place in Baja, Hungary over the weekend.
Pass posted about the incident on Facebook shortly after the meet. Here’s a rough translation of his post:
“What happened today is beyond all borders. In our last race of the day, five teams jumped into the pool. On the start signal, 4 teams left the blocks. Iron Aquatics for some reason did not react to the sound and started after 2-3 seconds. The Team’s world-renowned head coach is now out of his mind, and he has repeatedly demonstrated his high intelligence. With both his middle fingers in the air, he shouted ” thank you…” and later, ” f[***] you mr pass…” The people who saw it were shocked.”
Meet official Katalin Sass spoke to 24.hu as well, calling Tusup’s outburst “totally incomprehensible” and saying there were no technical irregularities at the start of the race, referencing 10-11 year old girls as the age group for the event.
We reached out to Tusup for comment, and though we didn’t receive response, Tusup did take to Facebook to defend himself. His posts, like Pass’s, are in Hungarian, but you can view them here (Part 1 and Part 2), along with a translation below.
Tusup addresses his swimmers directly to start the first post:
“We came to the last event, and you wanted to give us everything, one last time to show what you can do to win this event.
“And then, like me and the most high-school cheerleader in the field, they got a bad start. There is an unwritten rule in swimming: after all the swimmers are standing still on their start and they say “take your marks” the start judge will start the race in the most ideal 2-5-second period for the human body. . But this time, moments after the call, the swimmers were overwhelmed, which is not fair, especially when young people swim in a race.
“I saw that we missed the start, but I was sure that due to the defective start, and to ensure fair competition, they would restart the race. When I realized that the organizers had no intention of doing this, I was yelling at you [the swimmers] to go.
“You know I’m a perfectionist. Iron Aquatics is always looking for the best. When I felt that my competitors were disadvantaged, I reacted. I did, and I’m gonna do it whenever I feel like it. Maybe in the heat of the moment, I didn’t respond well, but you know me. I learned the profession from the leader of other professional sports who will never back down and stand up to anyone if they violate their team. Yeah, I stood up and tried to protect my athletes when I felt like a bad decision could be wasted because a real coach had to do it.”
Tusup followed up that post by posting a video of NBA coach Gregg Popovich being ejected from a basketball game after yelling what appear to be profanities at an official. Tusup argues that Popovich is one of the best coaches of all-time, and that Popovich, like Tusup, was yelling to protect his team.
Roid rage? Can someone check to see if he has back acne?
I wonder what the young swimmers think about this guy. When there are no adults in the room what do you think they would say?
Why do people keep messing with Shane? Y’all know Shane don’t play. ?
How do you say “meathead” in Hungarian?
Hambone
Hey now.
Egg rolls for harambe
Must’ve been some kinda expletive to be “totally incomprehensible.” I bet it was %$~!#* or the equivalent in Hungarian.
Shane still has a way to go to get to Lavar Ball status. But keep trying.
The LaVar thing to do would’ve been to get the whole relay team to walk out.
Wouldn’t have really been as effective a move in swimming, though.
At most age group meets I coach at the officials and timers are all parent volunteers. So while the range of competence may at times be broad, without their willingness to participate the meet couldn’t run at all. As this incident was reported to have occurred during the final race of the competition, it’s unlikely there had been ongoing poor officiating or Tusup would likely have used that as part of his excuse for his extreme reaction.
His comparison to Popovich is nonsensical. Popovich coaches professional athletes in a league where people’s livelihoods are on the line. Tusup was cursing in front of children over a perceived unfair start for a race for 11 year olds. Not the same thing. If you are coaching youth, you have to be the adult in these situations. Tell your team it was unfair and it shouldn’t have happened, but then use the situation as a lesson for how to move past unfair situations and persevere despite them.
Was coming here to say that exact thing.
His whole explanation is a bit off – though it is translated, so maybe it’s not 100%. But basically being like, “you guys know me, you know what I’m like!” when the stuff you did is “be a giant *sshole” maybe isn’t a great message for the childrens.
“You guys know me, I just love eating people!” -Jeffrey Dahmer