The Swimwatch post, “So Where To Now” discussed the importance of Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) building a vibrant environment of swimming throughout New Zealand. I received several emails commenting on the post, from people whose opinions I value. These are knowledgeable people. Experienced in coaching and administration. People who survived the Cameron and Cotterill gulag years.

I was surprised to discover a common flaw in their emails – a lack of trust. Clearly the dubiety and suspicion necessary to survive the Cameron and Cotterill period still has a grip on New Zealand swimming. That is not only dangerous, it is fatal to achieving international, elite success. Converting a vibrant base to international success requires trust. Trust from SNZ, trust from the coach and trust from the swimmer. But, before discussing the importance of trust, here are three quotes from the emails that indicate a lack of trust problem.

1. My big concern though is swimmers reaching senior age and feeling isolated in young, age group centred programmes and coaches struggling to adjust their training programmes to the needs of a senior athlete. By giving support to clubs/programmes that want to invest in senior squads I think it will give swimmers more options and help them make the decision to carry on swimming an easier one. If coaches in small programmes are able to connect and receive support from larger programmes, either through coach collaboration or allowing swimmers to train part-time with them then that would be ideal
2. Young teenagers are not known for asking a stranger for help. Totally agree swimmers need to learn to cope but while parents are still making decisions for their children they need to know the people responsible for their child are equipped and able to   be trusted.
3. Firstly the 14 year olds of today are significantly different to the 14 year olds of the 1990’s and in my professional opinion unable to adequately look after themselves – not withstanding they may have not had a national meet of any value in over 2 years some of our 13 year olds haven’t ever competed away from home. My comments were more aimed at the lack of respect for coaches.

Cameron and Cotterill have much to answer for. On numerous occasions Swimwatch has made the point that the damage done in the Cameron and Cotterill years will not be fixed overnight. These quotes are an example. The very flaws of suspicion and anti-SNZ attitudes necessary to survive those destructive 20 years will take time to repair. Trust was quickly lost. Cameron trusted no one, except herself. Trust will not be quickly recovered. Tongue, Johns and Francis are doing a good job of earning trust back. That’s why the constant sniping from Facebook is so damaging. It drags us back to the bad old days instead of supporting the trust needed to succeed.

The fundamental theme running through these email quotes is a lack of trust. A lack of trust in SNZ. A lack of trust by SNZ in coaches. A lack of trust by coaches in teenage swimmers. A lack of trust in small town coaches. A lack of trust by swimmers in their caregivers. And that disease is fatal.

A highly successful coach whose athletes won 6 Olympic medals told me the most important quality of a good international coach was, “always trust your athletes”. While the impression is out there that the coach in Wanaka has to send his swimmers to Dunedin or the TeKuiti coach needs to lean on Hamilton, New Zealand swimming is dead in the water. The coaches in Wanaka and TeKuiti need more trust than that. That’s not to say they can’t be educated and improved by Schubert and Boyle type visits suggested previously in Swimwatch. But to suggest they need the permanent crutch of a large town centre is destructive nonsense. As I have said before – if 5 snow medals can come out of Wanaka so can 5 swimming medals. But it won’t happen if the coach there is told often enough that he is nothing without Dunedin.

Equally absurd is the lack of trust demonstrated by coaches who can’t sit in a room beside the pool watching their swimmers compete. The lack of trust that demonstrates is staggering, and destructive. How a swimmer gets from that mistrust to an Olympic medal, I have no idea. These coaches are sending a terrible message, all based on a lack of trust. They are going to be “separated” by a wall for ten minutes. The negative lesson of overprotection and lack of trust far outweighs any benefit from being on the pool deck.

The lack of trust in SNZ also needs to stop. I’m not saying SNZ should be above constructive criticism. But the constant snipping nastiness is not justified. The bad eggs of the Cameron and Cotterill era have gone. Tongue, Johns and Francis know their stuff – so does Margaret McKee and Lauren Boyle. They are not a continuation of Cameron’s gulag. I trust them. For the good of swimming, it is time for the critics to do the same. Is it my imagination or are many of those who cosied up to the authoritarian Cameron and Cotterill now the reformed SNZ’s worst critics? There truly are none so strange as folk.

And so, building an elite pyramid on a healthy base takes trust. Of course, there will be occasions when trust is misplaced. SNZ will let us down. The coach will screw up. The swimmer will sneak out of camp in the middle of the night to meet his girlfriend. That is life. These events will never justify abandoning trust. At least not if you want to win a swimming race.

To end this post, let me tell you a story from the Cameron era. At the entrance to the pool in Rotorua there is a tree. It is short, about 5 foot 5 inches and very wide, about 4 foot 5 inches across. Our club and North Shore Swimming were staying in the cabins at the pool. After a late dinner we drove into the pool and there was Jan Cameron hiding behind the tree checking that none of her swimmers were breaking curfew. It was perfect. The tree and Cameron had the same dimensions. She had the ideal hideout. One of my swimmers named it the “Cameron Tree”. For years afterwards the tree was known by our club members by that name. The tree is still there – testament to a lack of trust.