[Breeze]

Gold Team Update

I really hate reporting this stuff...but I guess at this point I need to...

The swim community is a pretty small one, and unfortunately Neil's letter was leaked to coaches at the 2 mega-clubs in Atlanta, and they have decided to stir the pot. They released his letter to an International Swim website and called up local TV news crews to report on the issue, and it was a lead story last night. Of course the local media butchered the report because they did no research on the situation, and they interviewed people for reactions that had little to no knowledge of the situation.

I'm sickened by this...this is exactly the type of thing that caused me to get out of the media years ago.

Basically this comes down to a 23 year old coach dating an 18 year old swimmer in a consensual relationship, that the parents were aware of, and it occurred approximately 5 years ago. I understand that the coach/swimmer relationship is wrong, and I don't condone it, but does it really merit this much attention? Neil has admitted to the mistake, and agreed to take whatever punishment is handed down by USA swimming, so why is it being treated as if it is pedophilia or rape? As far as I'm concerned this is a non-story until the ruling from USA Swimming is released, at which point it probably would be a blirb detailing the problem and punishment.

I’ll admit though, that maybe I'm prejudice on the matter…and it is distorting my perspective