Victor Swim Club program director and co-head coach Michael Murray believes it’s time for USA Swimming and its Local Swim Committees to step forward and begin to help out clubs in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Friday we reported how Rhi Jeffrey, the coach of Atlantis Aquatics, was looking for the national governing body to provide financial support for small clubs like hers during this time of need.
Murray, who returned to Victor last August after spending two years at Islanders Aquatics, finds his club in a “solid financial situation” at the moment, but still believes there needs to be external help.
“The most viable opportunity for USA Swimming to financially provide assistance to the clubs, in my opinion, would be for each LSC (Local Swimming Committee) to develop their own stimulus packages for local clubs,” Murray told SwimSwam in an email. “I believe that each LSC has a responsibility to help ensure the future of the teams in its association.”
Victor Swim Club is a member of the Niagara LSC, who have approximately 65-75 clubs and around 4,500 swimmers. Per Niagara’s most recent Board of Director’s meeting in late January, it has $792.3K in available funds.
“Most, not all, but most LSC’s have a surplus of money that could really inject a financial future for the smaller teams within the LSC,” Murray said. “If USA Swimming encouraged each LSC to provide a ‘Developmental-Financial Stimulus Plan,’ for the economic viability of their clubs, I think it would go a long way in terms of assistance, fostering better/stronger relationships between the teams and working together to further our sport.”
Murray still commends the organization for what they’ve done since the crisis hit.
“I think that USA Swimming has been doing everything it possibly can from a programmatic standpoint to assist clubs during this time; I have seen their entire sports development staff become extremely engaged in terms of helping coaches with content, land training, mental health, etc.”
For his club specifically, Murray and his staff continue to work on plans for whatever comes.
“Victor has an extremely loyal parent and athlete base; at this point in time during the COVID-19 crisis the administrative team and I are planning out several contingency plans and different modalities as viable options moving forward,” he said.
“Our club immediately lost $10,000 to potentially $15,000 in revenue because we have been unable to run our annual spring lesson program. This severely impacted where we expected our position in the fiscal evolution of the year and we’re continually strategizing how to appropriately manage these unexpected losses.”
Swimming clubs are private businesses. USA swimming should not have anything to do with a financial bailout for a private swim club. I tell you some of these people are right for socialism. It is getting scary.
Except LSCs provide next to nothing to their clubs. At least when you pay taxes, services/programs are provided.
“America has socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor.” MLK
Wall Street and banksters loooooooved socialism in 2008.
Privatize the profits, nationalize the losses….
Hardcore capitalists loooooove socialism when they need it.
Some people don’t really understand what “socialism” actually means.
All good / profitable market structures are supported by regulations / rules.
Sometimes those markets are even subsidized by fees or taxes.
Agree LSCs should refund teams. One method would be to dived assets by number of registered swimmers to get a swimmer value. The amount refunded to teams would based on their registered numbers as of, for example, Mar 1.
But this makes one wonder, why do LSCs need so much in reserve? What are they doing with it? Does an LSC really need more than 1 or 2 years operating in reserves? And if an LSC does have so much, it should paid down.
700M + in the bank. Things that make you say hmmmm
Remember when mike passed out at the metro diner in Atlanta?
I remember Mike being at a few USA-Swimming Conventions and being a great delegate!
I also remember being at the Metro in Atlanta myself with other delegates and blasting through some Billy Idol, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and Weezer songs while partaking in karaoke 🎤 then having pancakes afterwards (just like Prince on the Chappelle Show skit).
2016 was a fun convention for sure!
DP, I’m on the mic with you anytime my man! I appreciate your support!
LSC revenue is in large part driven by teams that host meets – paying the LSC a splash fee or swimmer fee
The LSC Health is therefore based on the abilities of the teams to host meets
An idea would be to refund teams a percentage of what they have paid the LSC in the last 12 months in Splash Fees or swimmers fees
They should refund the money to the families that were overcharged over the last several years.
Interesting. Is it common for an LSC to be sitting on $800K of cash? If so, why?
I believe if you look at the larger LSC’s (SoCal, Illinois, Middle Atlantic) you are going to find “reserve” accounts of over $1 million is a very common practice
Illinois $1.3+m on hand, maybe there’s a plan 🤷🏼♂️
In case there is an emergency….but most LSCs consider an “Emergency” only to be a law suit.
I’m not going after LSC’s that have reserves; what I’m asking is “What or how are we going to use this surplus?” My opinion is that we should use this unplanned money to help out our teams.
Hmmm If the money goes to the team, what does the team do with it? Is it a personal stimulus package for the coaches?? If anything it should go right back to the families that paid for their kids to swim because they are not swimming.
i agree with Mike but i think there should be process that the LSC goes thru to extend aide. A club must be able to show why they need aide and what the aide is going for to help the club.
Agreed, Coach Tim! Each club should also be responsible for disclosing specific needs.