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and Contributors DATE: 31 May 2000 "Coach
Driven-Athlete Focused-Administratively Supported": Introduction Almost as soon as this committee was formed, word of its existence spread throughout the United States and even around the world. The committee had no shortage of suggested direction from both ASCA and WSCA members. Through this immediate, and almost unanimous, feedback both our President and Executive Director agreed to amend our charge (slightly) to, "Recommend optimum conditions, needs and actions to ensure optimum sports science support within USA Swimming, as well as the optimum direction for the operation of the ICAR". The immediacy of the response from our members, as well as the now successful model in Australia, showed the committee and the ASCA Executive Committee that one of our key problems has been that we have had "the tail wagging the dog". The ICAR should be (and should have been) an offshoot of our Sports Science Program. Our Sports Science Program should not be (or have been) an offshoot of ICAR. Although this may seem like mere semantics, this report should make clear both the significance and importance of this approach. ICAR has been essentially dormant as a research center for the past eight (8) years. 1992 and 1993 were watershed years for ICAR. By 1992, much of the research produced by the staff was lacking in credibility with both the coaching and scientific communities. Often its research mission was compromised by its "marketing" potential. Dr. William Huesner, one of the seminal swimming researchers in the United States, was charged with developing a committee of outside sports science people to review the operations of ICAR and make appropriate recommendations. The report of that (very prestigious) committee was legally sealed to "protect USS from potential litigation". Through the end of Ray Essick’s tenure and the early stages of Chuck Wielgus’ tenure, ICAR remained in dormancy. This year, with almost no fanfare and no input from the coaching community, USA Swimming has began to hire staff and re-open operations at ICAR, without an obvious operational plan, or even a mechanism to avoid the mistake(s) of the past. In order to provide (unsolicited) input from the coaching community and to help prevent the wasted efforts and mistakes of the past, this committee was formed. In the past two (2) quadrenniums, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has been aggressively promoting "resident teams" among its member NGBs. One of the key benefits of the resident team approach is the ability of a USOC Training Center to provide tremendous support for both coaches and athletes. In addition to the obvious room and board, specialists in physiology, biomechanics, psychology, nutrition, sports medicine, physical therapy and massage are all available to resident team athletes. This holistic, team approach is almost identical to the array of support afforded to NFL and NBA athletes, as well as our top NCAA Division I schools. The services offered by sports science are more valued than the research potential of the sports scientists by most practicing coaches and athletes. This is no less true at the club (grass roots) level, than it is at the elite international and professional levels. The Eastern European "sports factories" were presumed to be models of this kind of integrative approach to the use of sports science, although now the world knows them to have been both scientifically and athletically corrupted by extensive doping. Australia may now be the best model of a nation that has succeeded in integrating the service potential of the sports sciences in a true collaboration with their coaches. This seems to be true from the elite to the grass-roots levels. In fact, each year there seems to be less of a distinction between the elite and the grass roots in Australia, as it appears they have self-consciously de-centralized both their sports science and their training systems. As an open, English-speaking society, with a long history of a friendly rivalry with the United States, the Australian model has been relatively open to observation and questioning by American coaches. We have been able to watch from a distance and see their national strategy change as a result of their early failures; and we have witnessed their emergence as the leading nation in the world in men’s swimming as a result of their national change of direction. Their early failures are largely attributed to misguided attempts at centralization to sports academies and institutes, as well as an imbalance within their national sports science committee structure, with physiologists dominating their scientific peers in both number and influence. They attribute their current successes to a deliberate de-centralization, accompanied by the development of significant sports science support networks at the club level throughout Australia. Their code words have become coach driven-athlete focused-administratively supported. Parallels for the Australian Sports Science model not only exist in professional and collegiate sports, but in private industry, as well. Our committee was privileged to get an insight in to the science support system in the 3M Corporation. 3M has three levels of labs to support its sales and engineering staffs, as well as its customer base. 3M’s Division Labs work closely with their customers and focus on quality improvement. The typical timeframe for Division labs to see results of their projects is 6-24 months. Inside the Division Labs are Technical Service teams. These teams serve as the two-way bridge between the Division scientists and engineers and the 3M customer. The Technical Service teams work closely with the customers to define needs, address problems, highlight new products/services/information needed by the customer, while simultaneously acting as the internal voice of the customer to 3M’s technical community. The parallel between 3M’s Technical Service team and the proposed Sports Science Support network were too obvious to miss. The next "level" of labs at 3M are the Group Labs. Interestingly, they work independently from all of their operating divisions and focus on new technologies that are applicable to specific market centers. At the Group Lab level, results of projects are expected within a 2-3 year timeframe. 3M’s Corporate Labs are the "Blue Sky" labs that we have all read about in the popular press. These labs are specifically charged with developing groundbreaking new products of technologies within a 3-5 year timeframe. Looking back at our recent sports science history and outward to what is being done collegiately, professionally, internationally and commercially, gave us the perspective to recommend a focus for USA Swimming’s Sports Science efforts. Bottom-Up Focus Often, American coaches have been presented with a false choice between a national focus on new research or applying the information that already exists. This is not a choice. It is a straw man. Although we may not be able to implement the entirety of the Sports Science program immediately, we must follow our priorities and build the program from the bottom up. The focus of a "bottom-up" program is quality improvement. The quality of coaches and coaching; the quality of clubs and management; the metric will be the quality improvement of swimmers, faster times. This quality improvement goal will be effected through two (2) interventions. The first will be the service (applied science) component, provided through collaborations with local colleges and health care professionals. The second intervention will be the research component, provided by USA Swimming Swim Science Interns. The goal of the applied science service collaborations is to help coaches access data that will help them make better coaching decisions. Typical decision areas are:
The research goals of the Swim Science Interns are to develop baseline data and metrics on major clubs that have historically developed homegrown, national swimmers. Methods would include archiving and analyzing workouts and seasonal plans; recording baseline data; administration of testing to both senior and age group athletes; and tracking "elite" senior and age group swimmers. This data will be used to develop (among other things) both coach and club productivity measures, using large data sets, following industrial engineering, biostatistics, epidemiology and quality control models and protocols, among others. In addition to the swimming technical data, basic club management studies will be done including structure, finance, governance and continuing education. Swimming Research One of the new missions of the USA Swimming Institute has to be to develop a new generation of swimming researchers in the United States. The "lions" of American Swimming Science are graying, retiring or dying, and few swimming scientists have been trained or inspired to take their places. Fortunately, this ancillary mission of researcher development dovetails neatly with the need and desire to distribute three (3), specific categories of research among interested universities around the country. No organization does basic science research better than universities. This is even widely acknowledged in the private and non-profit research centers. In addition, this committee proposes that coach-directed research into the use of existing technologies and into the application of the social sciences be specifically directed to university settings through an annual grant Request for Proposals (RfP) mechanism. Specific issues that have been brought to this committee’s attention for university research in the use of existing technologies are velocity measurement and materials testing (suits, etc.). Social science issues that have been brought to this committee’s attention were in the areas of contemporary sociology and marketing. Specific coach requests for research in basic sciences have been in the areas of motor development, learning and motor control in the aquatic environment. The United States Swimming Science Institute (USSSI) would be USA Swimming’s version of the 3M Corporate Lab. The demands on the USSSI would be similar to those on the 3M Corporate Lab, groundbreaking research with an expected 3-5 year application timeline. In addition to the "blue-sky" research, an equally strong applied science section is also needed within the USSSI, focussed on solving specific, coach-directed problems. Examples that have been brought in front of this committee are:
In order to achieve these dramatic goals for the USSSI, many collaborations will be needed. No single entity can, or should, be expected to "go it alone" and achieve these far reaching goals. Some of the most frequently requested (of this committee) collaborations would involve computer and video technology in the area of stroke mechanics. "Historical" stroke mechanics, including the archiving of old film and video onto digital media and "comparative" stroke mechanics, including the split-screen digitization of developing swimmers, side-by-side with recognized champions are frequently mentioned, along with "evolutionary" stroke mechanics, where force-lift-drag equations are used to computer model proposed changes in stroke mechanics. Proposed changes must not only be computer modeled using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), they must be "proofed" in the water using evaporative dye studies. This could serve an excellent opportunity for "collaboration" between the USSSI and a USA Swimming Corporate Partner (General Motors), as CFD and evaporative dye studies have been refined to the "state-of-the-art" in the automotive industry. The other area of computer modeling that has been brought to this committee with some regularity is in the development of training models and test sets, areas that would clearly lend themselves to collaborations between the USSSI, university researchers and "coach-hackers" (who have done most of the development to date). The USSSI can, and should, be a focal point in the development and application of "advanced technologies". Again, an area that lends itself to both formal and informal collaborations with engineers and "coach-tinkerers", these collaborations should be expected to develop, or assist in the development of new products for the swimming marketplace. Structure of the USSSI ICAR has never been international. Many other nations have their own centers for swimming science, Australia, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Spain and China to name a few. ICAR has also never been "central". Many of the previously mentioned nations have produced a significantly greater volume of peer reviewed, published swimming research. Much of that research has also been more directly applicable by coaching practitioners. Further, this committee has recommended a "domestic", not international, focus to the entire swimming science system. The Institute is no different. It must have a domestic focus; be driven by domestic coaches; answering domestic questions. The Institute should also not be "central". The Bottom-Up focus demands that our clubs be central in this process. Funding and focus on the development of the Institute must be secondary (or tertiary) to the development of the grass-roots program. Once the grass-roots program and the university research grants are in place, the USSSI needs to be redeveloped. It is the recommendation of this committee (and many USA Swimming staff members seeking anonymity) that the USSSI be insulated politically from USA Swimming. We recommend that the USSSI be developed as an independent, non-profit corporation, with an independent board and budget, much like the United States Sports Insurance Corporation (USSIC). In fact, if the very successful model of the USSIC were used, political and structural independence would be created, while still remaining joined by USA Swimming driven goals and funding guarantees. The most important aspect of the entire United States Swimming Science effort depends on the leadership of this effort. The Executive Director of this independent corporation must be responsible for directing the entire swimming science effort, not merely the USSSI. The Executive Director does not need to be a scientist. The Executive Director must be able to handle multiple priorities by building collaborations, not resorting to power, or office, politics. The Executive Director must be a proven manager of multiple, high-priority, high-budget projects. The Executive Director must have a history of managing "stars": highly skilled, high performance, technical specialists. At all levels, from the grass roots, club-service, through the university grants, to the USSSI, including all the necessary collaborations, an "open structure" must be maintained. This means that all results from all, ongoing research will be available to all participants, at all levels, all the time. This will require a significant commitment to use of the internet and web pages for projects, but is essential for developing credibility in the system. Similarly, credibility must also be developed within the scientific community. As projects come to completion, all results must be published and there must be no publication without peer review. In the case of interim result publication on web pages, or internal publications, lack of peer review must be noted. Second in importance only to the leadership of the USSSI Executive Director is the composition and management of the "Study Section" for the USSSI. The Study Section is a group of volunteer scientists and coaches who meet, in person, twice a year. The first meeting is dedicated to developing the "questions" for the coming year’s round of research and grants, prioritizing those questions and developing Requests for Proposals that address those prioritized questions. During the second meeting, the Study Section sorts through the RfP responses. Based on the prioritized list of questions and the research budget for the year, the Study Section determines the fund allocation for both the basic and applied research. Ideally, the Study Section should be coordinated by a full time Project Manager. It should be comprised of one (1) researcher in each of the identified swimming science disciplines (Physiology, Biomechanics, Psychology, Nutrition, Sports Medicine, Information Technology, Hydrodynamics, Motor Learning, etc.), two (2) statisticians and one (1) USA Swimming Corporate Partner representative who is familiar with research in their industry. In addition to these twelve (12) members, at least six (6), national level coaches (or, 1/3 of the total Study Section), of both elite and age group swimmers, should be members of the Study Section. The Project Manager would, in addition to providing staff support to the Study Section, develop and coordinate an input process from all USA Swimming coaches to the coach-members of the study section, as well as an input process from swimming researchers to the researcher-members of the Study Section. Both the Project Manager and the Study Section itself would have to develop an evaluation process for the research outcomes. Even in-house researchers should submit blind proposals to be evaluated by the Study Section, reviewed by the same process and grouped with outside researchers’ proposals. The legal, staffing and location of the USSSI, although controversial, must not be ignored. For the purposes of this committee’s initial recommendations however, only legal and location will be dealt with. The issue of staffing will be reserved for the possible development of an implementation plan, at the direction of the ASCA Board of Directors. Even more controversial than the possible legal issues at the USSSI is the possibility of re-locating the USSSI. Since before its inception, Colorado Springs has been a controversial site for what is currently the ICAR. In the discussions leading to the development of the ICAR, Counsilman was vehemently opposed to locating the research center at altitude. Although the flume itself can be controlled for altitude, in every other aspect, from eating and sleeping to blood tests and psychological profiles, the subjects are "sojourners at altitude" (Senay and Robertshaw). Additionally, Colorado Springs is located near what many researchers consider to be the "breakpoint", or threshold, for the altitude response. This means that there would be a great disparity in the responses between individual athletes (from none to full response) and even within a single athlete on separate trips to Colorado Springs. Thus, research data collected at Colorado Springs may not reflect normal physiological, psychological or biomechanical responses and may not provide data that is useful or informative to coaches and swimmers. More recently, the lack of a large swimming population in the Colorado Springs area has become an issue. Many coaches and researchers believe that the USSSI must be located in, or near, a large and diverse swimming population, enabling it to develop large data sets in its research. The lack of an intellectually diverse and dynamic research hub in Colorado Springs has also been cited as a source of academic sterility and creeping research sloppiness that plagued ICAR in the past. In order to combat this, locating the USSSI at a major research university, or on the "campus" of a private-sector research center should be considered. As compelling as the rationale for relocating the USSSI away from Colorado Springs is the rationale for leaving it on the campus of the US Olympic Training Center. In addition to continuous National Team access, the ICAR enjoys both physical and fiscal support that would be difficult to equal elsewhere. Although we should seriously investigate locating the USSSI to a near sea level, swimming population center, in collaboration with a research university, we must maintain the physical support, fiscal support and athlete support that the ICAR now enjoys. The issue(s) of intellectual property rights must be decided well in advance. It is the recommendation of this committee that the USSSI follow the examples and protocols commonly used at research universities. These are both time and court tested, as well as conducive to a stimulating intellectual environment. The USSSI must be the incubator for swimming innovation, providing engineering, manufacturing, patent, copyright and marketing assistance—even small project development funding--for product developers, whether they be stroke films, exercise machines or computer programs. In the past, many swimming coaches have developed and openly shared many ideas and products, only to have their ideas "stolen", with no credit acknowledged or royalties paid. This repeated "theft" of intellectual property has diminished both the willingness to share and the energy to innovate. We must ascertain that both credit and compensation are appropriately dispensed. Although the swimming market is very small, it is easily feasible that products developed at the USSSI would have "cross-over" value to the larger sports or healthcare marketplaces. Along with the intellectual property rights issues come issues of patent ownership and the (financial) rights of the athletes and coaches who participated in, or contributed to, the development of any potential products. Implementation Grass Roots First Local SSNs will consist of local scientists, researchers and medical professionals who have indicated a willingness to: support local clubs, conduct local research and both attend swimming specific seminars within their discipline and spend weekly "deck time" with a national-level coach in their area, in order to "get up to speed" on swimming specific issues within their field. The USSSI staff and associates will: serve as a model SSN in order to support the current National and Resident Team Coaches (as defined by the National Team Director); conduct research selected by the National Team Coaches; and conduct the "swimming specific seminars" for the local SSN professionals within their discipline. The USSSI will be coordinated by the USA Swimming Director of Sports Science. It is important that all of the identified disciplines be represented either by USSSI staff or associates. In the event that there is not a staff position in a particular discipline, the Director of Sports Science must recruit associate scientists, researchers or medical professionals. [Budget Implications: 9, $5000 annual stipends to non-staff associates. Sub-total: $45,000. (Running Total: $45,000)] One area that has been repeatedly identified as a major weakness in the ICAR/USSSI staff/associate structure is statistics. Staff should be hired, or associates developed, in population statistics, biostatistics and epidemiology, sequential statistics, as well as developmental (industrial-type) statistics. This should be one of the first areas addressed as the USSSI builds its staff and associate infrastructure. Clubs participating in the SSN must commit to a 2:1 matching grant with USA Swimming for professional stipends for the local scientists, researchers and/or medical professionals who participate in the network. [Budget Implications: 4, $2000 matches/Zone. Sub-total: $32,000. (Running Total: $77,000)] USA Swimming must assume the costs of the "swimming specific seminars" for the various disciplines. If possible, these seminars should be coordinated with the annual conventions of those disciplines, in order to reduce the travel expenses to USA Swimming. [Budget Implications: 12, seminars conducted in conjunction with annual professional meetings. Travel $750 each. Meeting costs $1250 each. Sub-total $24,000. (Running Total $101,000)] Swim Science Interns The clubs will be selected based on National Junior Team placement, as well as the number and performance of 18 and under men/16 and under women at USA Swimming Nationals. The Swim Science Interns will "enlist" for a period of 15 months. The first three months (June through August) will consist of training by the USSSI staff and associates, the USA Swimming staff and the staff of the ASCA. September 1 through August 31, the Swim Science Interns will serve in their internship capacity with the selected club. A club and an intern shall be selected only once for this program. The interns will be responsible for disseminating the collected data on a designated web site that will be available exclusively to the USA Swimming coaching community. Additionally, the interns will meet as a group at the US Open and both USA Swimming National Championships, to discuss their findings under the direction of the USA Swimming, the USSSI and the ASCA staffs. These findings, both technical and managerial, will be disseminated nationally by the USA Swimming Sport Development Coordinators and will be available to all USA Swimming coaches at the designated web site. Participant clubs must commit to a 2:1 matching grant with USA Swimming, to cover the intern’s salary for the year. Travel costs during the year will be covered by the selected club. All expenses during the three-month training period will be the responsibility of USA Swimming. The Programs and Services Director in the Sport Development Division will coordinate the Swim Science Intern program. [Budget Implications: 2, $7500 matches/Zone. Sub-total $60,000. 8 interns’ summer training expenses, $1500 each. Sub-total $12,000. 8 interns’ travel, $500 each. Sub-total $4000. (Running Total $177,000)] Research A group of coaches and scientists must develop an annual set of research priorities and develop Requests for Proposals (RfPs) to solicit responses to those priorities from reputable researchers throughout the country. This group must spend the year preceding their meeting scanning areas that merit further investigation, from the mundane to the pragmatic to the "pie in the sky". They should be reviewing research in other disciplines for its potential applicability to swimming. Once the annual research priorities and RfPs have been developed and distributed to universities, private sector research institutes and the USSSI staff and associates, a Study Section will be developed to review the responses and select the projects to be funded within that year’s budget. This competitively based research must form the bulk of each year’s research budget. [Budget Implications: 6, $25,000 grants. Sub-total $150,000. (Running Total $327,000)] Diversity of disciplines is critical both in the committee that establishes the annual priorities and in the Study Section, because it is at the edges of paradigms and the intersections of disciplines where breakthroughs and maximum returns are usually found. No more than one scientist, researcher and medical professional in each discipline should serve on the Research Priorities Committee and the Study Section. Conflicts of interests in both of these groups must be scrupulously avoided. The Director of Sports Science shall provide staff support to both the Research Priorities Committee and the Study Section. Both the Committee on Research Priorities and the Study Section will require multi-day, annual meetings. [Budget Implications: Travel for 18 committee members, $500 each. Sub-total $9,000 each group. (Running Total $345,000)] Once the research has been completed, peer reviewed and published, the USA Swimming Sport Development Coordinators must "translate" this material into language, formats and tools useful to all levels of the USA Swimming community. Web-based Information Delivery System
Not only must the individual(s) have the above-mentioned skills; they must have demonstrated those skills in a large-scale web information environment. The combination of these skill and experience sets would require the hiring of one, very experienced (expensive) individual, or a group of individuals who posses all the requisite skills and experience (also expensive). For this reason, corporations about the same size as USA Swimming often find it more cost-effective to outsource their web development and maintenance. What is difficult is simultaneously outsourcing the swimming background necessary to put the research content and discussion groups in perspective. The USSSI web development person/group must be able to take the information developed by the local research projects, the Sports Science Interns and the Grant-based research and convert it in to effective media that are useful to both coaches and "new-to-swimming" researchers. The individual/group must be able to effectively moderate a closed internet forum; maintain both a high level and technical focus in the forum, while still encouraging controversial and cutting-edge technical content; glean information from the forum and pass it on to the Committee on Research priorities; and contact researchers and coaches to solicit additional, or clarifying, information for the forum. [Budget Implications: $35,000 at 10% of total budget. (Running Total: $380,000)] Evaluations and Accountability Participating coaches will evaluate both the scientific support received from their local network, as well as the staff support received from USA Swimming. Participating scientists will evaluate both the coaches and the USA Swimming staff. The USA Swimming Sport Development Coordinators will evaluate both the participating coach and local scientist/medical professional. A similar "360o" degree evaluation process will be used for the Swimming Science Interns. The interns will evaluate the selected club based on access to information and support of the project, and their USA Swimming Sport Development Coordinator based on the coordinator’s ability to facilitate their project. The host coach will evaluate the intern based on skills as an assistant coach and the intern’s ability to unobtrusively complete the research, and the USA Swimming Sport Development Coordinator’s ability to assist both the host coach and intern during the internship year. The USA Swimming Sport Development Coordinator will evaluate both the host club/coach on access to information provided to the intern, as well as the intern based on follow-through and presentation/analysis of the intern’s research. For the grant-based research, evaluation is as important as the research itself. The Study Section will evaluate the previous year’s research, immediately prior to awarding the following year’s grants. If expertise, outside of that available in the Study Section, is needed to evaluate a given project, the Chair of the Study Section should seek that expertise. The final evaluation should include a statement on whether the Study Section would recommend future funding for:
The USSSI legal counsel, prior to publication, should approve all final evaluations. Statement of Ethics This includes, but is not limited to, research driven by locally determined needs; research conducted as a part of the swimming science internship; research driven by the Committee on Research priorities; research requested by the National Team coaches; and research preformed on the behalf of sponsors or other for-profit entities. Specifically in the instance of research preformed under contract with an outside party, "non-disclosure" agreements shall be negotiated—in advance—by the Assistant Executive Director for Sports Development. No researcher(s) shall be a party to the negotiations. The purpose of the negotiations is to:
The Assistant Executive Director for Sport Development shall be bound by the duty to get swimming information back to the swimming community in the fastest, most accurate and most complete manner possible. Conclusions Once the program is fully operational, the issues of an independent corporate structure, possible location changes, etc. must be addressed, however our commitment of service to athletes through coaches must not be delayed while political issues are addressed. |
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