Curl Burke Swim Club announced Wednesday that they are now the Nation’s Capital Swim Club (NCAP). After head coach Rick Curl stepped down last month amidst sexual abuse allegations, the club moved quickly to distance itself from Curl and his name.
Thomas E. Ugast is the new owner. He has worked with the club for 6 years as chief operating officer, and took over as CEO in late July. “The last couple of months have been a challenging time for our Club, coaches, swimmers, and facility partners,” he said. “Our new name and ownership build on the many changes we’ve already made that reflect our uncompromising commitment to the safety of our swimmers, while preserving the talents and strengths that have made our club one of the country’s most successful for years.”
Pete Morgan, who coached Ed Moses to a gold medal and world record, will continue the head coaching duties he assumed in July. Along with the new name, the club has introduced a new logo to further establish its new identity, which has been recognized and approved by USA Swimming.
NCAP has over 2,000 swimmers spread across 15 facilities and led by a coaching staff that totals 85 (and includes Tim Kelly, who in this author’s opinion is the best club coach in the country). The club is coming off of one of its most successful seasons in several years, highlighted by Katie Ledecky’s gold medal and American Record performance in London.
Ugast commented on the “support, counsel, and understanding” from within the club community during a difficult time and said that the “Club remained strong primarily because of the talents and dedication of our coaches and the trust they have earned from their swimmers and families.”
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Disclaimer: The author of this article was a long time member of NCAP, formerly known as Curl Burke Swim Club
Very disappointing in what happened. It touched many families in our area because Curl Burke was, and is such a close community environment. I remember not only swimming there five times a week at 5 in the morning, but also all the fun we had at practices, swim meets and after swim meet parties. I was very shocked to hear what had happened. But I am very impressed with how fast everything was dealt with. A whole entire club and 2,000 of it’s talented swimmers should not be in any way affected by Curls poor decisions. So by changing the name to “NCAP” they are starting a new chapter in the clubs being and also a way for people to… Read more »
I hear rumors of some more coaching changes down there. Any truth to those that anybody can verify?
Most of the meets for pvs are way closer to loudon/pwc than than the Virginia lsc meets are, so don’t make it sound like some kind of conspiracy. Being a swim family is hard enough as it is, driving 3 hours down to ft. Belvoir for an open meet doesn’t exactly fit every family’s schedule. Also, 1000s of swimmers in loudon and pwc? Seems like you’re reaching there… Nowhere near half of NCAP swimmers live that far out
SNOW, OCCS, BWST, NCAP(CUBU WEST) are all training in Loudoun and Prince William county. Between these 4 clubs there are at least 1500-2000 swimmers that should be registered in the VA LSC.
Almost 1/2 of CUBU/NCAP swimmers live OUTSIDE of PVS in the VIRGINIA LSC. In a carefully brokered deal many years ago Loudoun and Prince William counties were basically given to PVS as long as the main office of the team was inside of PVS boundaries. Now the VA lsc lose revenue from 1000’s of swimmer who are registered and racing in PVS and PVS swimmers are faced with over subscribed swim meets and a mega team that has sites that are over 65 miles apart!!
the size of this club is astronomical! it is larger than my LSC!!!!
NCAP is indeed a huge organization. A satellite structure with all those pools. They don’t directly run any of those places. My understanding is that they have to negotiate rents/leases pretty regularly. Contrast that with the other large satellite club in the area, Rockville-Montgomery Swim Club. RMSC is completely located in one county, and the fewer sites are all city/county-owned. As such, the club is itself a recreation arm of Rockville City/Montgomery County municipal government. The club coaches and officers are therefore accountable to these organizations, and my assumption is that tuition, finances and overview are MUCH more transparent than at CUBU/NCAP. RMSC is HQ’ed at one pool, Rockville/Montgomery Swim Center in Rockville, and has satellites at MLK Pool/White Oak… Read more »
Yes, and my tax dollars go to subsidize that program and its lower costs. Look RMSC, CUBU/NCAP, and a number of the other teams in the area are good, competitive and different. There is no “best” — there is the best fit for a family and swimmers. For some it is RMSC, for some CUBU/NCAP, for some ASA or one of the smaller clubs. We’re just lucky, frankly, that we have an abundance of choice in clubs, coaches, locations, and competitions.
the original article did not include the phrase “in my opinion”, that phrase was only added after my initial post….and if the writer is a former Curl-Burke swimmer perhaps that should be noted somewhere as well.
Someone forgot to use “Acronym Wizard” on MS Word. How does “Nation’s Capitol Swim Club” = NCAP? If going for ease of identificaion is the goal (like pronouning the old name “Coo-Boo”), and they are going to call themselves “En-Cap,” why not “Nation’s Capitol Aquatic Program?
N(ation’s)CAP(ital). It’s a wild guess but I’m certain that was the thought behind it
Really? Out of all of this, you are going to comment on the acronym? USA Swimming doesn’t always use the first letter of the words in the name of the club, by the way. If you research other clubs, there are many that use several letters of one word in addition to maybe just one letter of another.
Should we assume from this press release that the newly formed membership of NCAP is satisfied that Pete Morgan did not sit on direct knowledge of a sexual relationship between Kellie Currin and Rick Curl?
Probably safe to assume this has all been worked out with USAS. Look for Curl to get fried and USAS will hope the rest is forgotten. Would be devastating to the very large, lucrative yet fledgling club if Morgan is tied into the mess.
Esq – If you know something, say something. If you don’t know anything, what is your point?
I think his point is that, without saying it directly, NCAP is believing Morgan when he says he didn’t know anything about Curl. Or else why would they open themselves up to another scandal and another new name (like that will make everything better).