Two features of Christian Renford’s time as the CEO of Swimming New Zealand caused me concern. First the attack he launched on the quality of New Zealand coaches within a week of arriving here. Second his criticism of me without having ever met me and the uncomfortable feeling I had that he was looking after his personal interests first rather than the welfare of the sport – that he might, in other words, be a bit of a chancer.
His attack on the standard of New Zealand coaches within a week of arriving in the country was a cheap shot. It confirmed the administrator driven nature of swimming in New Zealand. The best swimming nations, the USA for example, are coach driven. Renford’s early attack was all the evidence we needed that, while he was in charge, the culture of the sport in New Zealand was not going to change. And it still hasn’t. And that’s a shame. The experience of swimming nations around the world is clear and beyond contest. Coach driven sports are successful. Administrator led sports fail.
I’ve coached in the UK, the USA, the Virgin Islands, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia. The UK and USA are coach driven and succeed. The Virgin Islands, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia are administrator driven and are swimming barren lands. In administrator led regimes the prevailing view is that coaches are “too big for their boots” and need to be “kept in line”. I’ve had senior officials in all the administrator led countries tell me, with some pride, their low opinion of the country’s coaches and how good they are at keeping coaches in their place. Sadly and in every case those administrators have got the results their foolishness deserves. In coach led countries the views, contribution and importance of coaches are respected and given paramount weight. These regimes always yield the highest success. Renford never understood that truth and as a result he failed to reform the sport and failed to achieve the competitive results that were possible.
It is off the subject of this post but I feel the New Zealand Swim Coaches and Teachers Association must shoulder some of the guilt for the poor status of New Zealand coaches. The organization has been too nice. It has not demanded attention with sufficient force. And to that extent the Association has let New Zealand swimmers down. The guys running NZSCAT are genuinely nice guys – polite, friendly and concerned. Men like Neville Sutton, Clive Power, Graham Price and Gary Hurring are intelligent, good coaches who have forgotten more about swimming than Renford and his like have ever known. But they have not aggressively demanded the right to be heard – and they should have.
And as far as Renford not meeting me is concerned, it is interesting that within a week of starting coaching in Florida I was contacted by USA Swimming and a meeting was arranged to discuss my coaching philosophy and plans. In New Zealand I coached for five years at the country’s leading pool and was never contacted by Swimming New Zealand to discuss anything. I did not meet Renford until West Auckland Aquatics was falling apart. And when I did meet him, I will forever remember the look of surprise and concern on the face of Chairman Bruce Cotterill when he realized Renford and me were meeting for the first time. Clearly he, like me, thought good management demanded better than that. But appearances seemed to be pretty important to Renford and even I understand that talking to David Wright is not the best way of keeping in with the “cool” group.
BUT
Having said all that negative stuff my opinion of Christian Renford changed during the period West Auckland Aquatics was dying. He met me on my own in the SNZ offices and in spite of the pretty horrible things I had said in Swimwatch about his management of the business he listened carefully to my views on the problems at West Auckland Aquatics (WAQ). Later he met with the four remaining members of the WAQ Board and offered us a generous proposal aimed at saving the Club. In return for the four of us resigning from the WAQ Board for five years SNZ would assume a form of statutory management of the club. Their management would stay in place for about six months until such time as a new Board could be elected.
Renford’s proposal was generous beyond anything required of a sport’s governing body. Two of us accepted his offer. Unbelievably Susan Turner and Bridget Maher turned him down. The fate of WAQ was sealed. A week or so later Renford terminated WAQ’s registration. Through all this, and in spite of our differences, he communicated with me openly and with compassion. Every couple of days I would get a phone call updating me with what SNZ were doing and asking me about how I was getting on. I could not have been treated better. When the chips were down Christian Renford delivered and you can’t ask for more than that.
Obviously I don’t know the new CEO, Scott Newman. Meeting him is a bit more difficult than the fifteen minute drive it took to meet Renford. I do hope though that when the opportunity arises it does not take three years to discover that the CEO is a good guy. The time it took to meet Christian Renford was wrong and just plain dumb. Perhaps we have both learned from that mistake.
