By David
She has gone; her coaching philosophy is discredited and in ruins; a failure. She spent around $10 million and earned nothing; not a single medal at a World LC Championships or Olympic Games. Of course I am pleased to see her go. Not because I have anything against Jan Cameron, the human being. I have only spoken to her twice. On both occasions the conversation barely got passed the, “Hello, it’s cold (or warm) today” stage. No, this was never personal. This was because the philosophy she sold Swimming New Zealand and SPARC was never going to work. Jan Cameron was the architect, but SPARC and Swimming New Zealand gave her the resources and the power. They are as guilty as she is for the human and financial waste that is the legacy of the Cameron years. Miskimmin and Coulter were told. They were told by Swimwatch and they backed Cameron.
On November 26, 2006 the following story appeared in Swimwatch.
In the last few weeks the Florida High School Swimming Championships have been held and Jan Cameron has been appointed to head New Zealand’s high performance swimming effort. Readers outside New Zealand are probably not aware that sport in New Zealand is a social welfare beneficiary equal to any of the state’s unemployed, infirm or uneducated.
In Florida I was invited to an after match dinner paid for by two working families while Cameron pondered how to best employ her career’s advisors, nutritionalists, physiotherapists, masseurs, ear specialists, doctors and orthopedic specialists. I’m sure you get the point. The differences reflect the contrast between a planned socialist attack on world swimming and a high school curriculum option alongside Chemistry and American History. My God, the resources of a nation at her disposal and Cameron can do no better than our local high school; one win. She’s made some pretty big promises about Beijing. I’m beginning to think Florida will beat her there too.
And of course she did lose in Beijing and Florida with Ryan Lochte and Dara Torres did not. Then in December 2006 the following quote appeared in Swimwatch.
The best part of all this is the quote from one of New Zealand’s “elite” swimmers. It is typical of what they are learning in the era of Jan Cameron’s leadership; any excuse will do. “We trained and trained for the Commonwealth Games so we were pretty flat for our next meet.” Your next meet, whoever you are, was the World Championships. What on God’s earth are you doing going to a World Championships, representing a proud little country, feeling “pretty flat”. Why is it only now, when it has cost you money, that you realize the World Championships are pretty important? The fault of course lies in those who lead whoever said this. To Cameron and the bureaucrats in Wellington, is this quote what you have brought the sport of swimming to in New Zealand?
Whoever said this needs to be told, “If you went to a World Championships, feeling pretty flat, not realizing it was an important event and admit that to us now, I’m afraid you do not deserve to be funded, you have not earned that money. And those who taught you all this should resign.”
After battling for five years to have those in power recognize the wantonness of Cameron’s ideology, her passing is most welcome. It has come five years too late – but better late than never. However there is a major concern.
World history has demonstrated many times that when tightly controlled dictatorships end, a power vacuum is created. Chaos and hurt can occur until a sound system of governance takes its place. When tight Communist rule lost control in the USSR, there was a period of near anarchy while the nation’s leaders sought to build a democratic, free market system in its place. We do not want to see the same chaos occur in Swimming New Zealand.
Jan Cameron has ruled over her empire as effectively as any Soviet dictator. She has gone and she has left behind a power vacuum. Good people are on hand to build a free market system of elite swimming in New Zealand. But there is a road block. There are the remnants of the Coulter Board and a CEO, Mike Byrne, who have no idea what we are talking about. For the love of God you guys, get out of the bloody way so those who do know how this sport should work in a democratic, free market environment can get on and put a new structure in place; a structure to replace the old Cameron single party dictatorship.
If Butler and Byrne stay where they are and stubbornly prevent new systems replacing the old, then the chaos, they predict, will occur. Responsibility for that will rest with them. But they will not be hurt. The people who will pay for their obstinacy will be the swimmers who have been cut adrift by Cameron’s departure. We have lobbied for five years to see the end of this woman. She has gone now. We have a responsibility to every swimmer in New Zealand to ensure that a new system of governance fills the vacuum she has left behind. That system will be different, it will be tougher, it will be less comfortable and it will be better. It will be called democratic, free enterprise. It will be New Zealand rugged individualism.
Ross Butler – I know you have no idea what I am talking about. And even if you did, you have voted against the sporting philosophy proposed here for all your time on the Swimming New Zealand Board. The departure of Jan Cameron makes you a road block to progress. For as long as you stay, there is a real danger those who do know the structures that should best replace the dictatorship you and Coulter and Cameron built are not going to have the power to put democratic structures in its place. Please leave now and take your six other Directors with you. There is work to be done.
