When Did The Membership Lose Control Of US Diving?
The title raises an interesting question because there are some who haven't noticed that yet. This is written to make those who are unaware…aware.
Some coaches will say that we lost control at the last convention. Actually we started to lose control long before that. We lost some control during the past president's term. The president's 11 votes, which are used to stack any process in the administration's favor, are the beginning of our loss of control. The current president has only increased the speed of the process.
Currently there are 3 people who seemed to have hijacked US Diving from its own membership. They are the President of US Diving and his 2 appointees. Those appointees are the General Council and the chairperson of the law and legislative committee. All three have legal backgrounds, which they probably knew that not many members would challenge. However, Bridget Hunter has been accused of writing the proposal that gave Bill Walker a 2 year extension on his term without any vote of the membership. One member has filed a petition to have the Board of Review revisit the proposal written by Bridget Hunter, who shepherded it through committee. Why does one member have to enlist the services of a lawyer to petition an organization that she is a member of when that organization claims to be following all of the rules? How did we get to a point where a coach needed to hire a lawyer to get US Diving to follow procedures that are supposed to be in the best interests of the membership? US Diving is supposed to enable its coaches not disable them.
It is during this time that a few articles have appeared on US Diving's web site (2 articles written by the president, 1 by Bridget and 1 by an athlete). The president wrote about what should have happened procedurally at the convention, making it appear that those guidelines were followed. Those messages appeared on US Diving's web site, leaving one with the impression that something underhanded has happened and they were trying to cover it up.
On the other hand, Bridget wrote a note trying to defend her editing of the rulebook and code changes highlighting her legal background expertise. The typed code proposals had blocked phrases with words crossed out and others inserted that completely changed the meaning of the original code. Who jumped in to help?… the president. He rationalized that the blocked phrases could be used to further explain the intent of a sentence or phrase. By doing that, Bridget changed the name of the officer that the code was referring to, which was the president. His title was not even in the original text for the proposal.
The only comment I will make about the athlete's article is that it was used to enhance the leadership's position. It is truly unfortunate that many times they are given half-truths as information on which to base their conclusions. It's amazing that even the athletes aren't being told the truth here. They are the reason we are all involved.
Ever since the General Council called his board of review committee "stupid" in front of the membership in an open meeting at the last convention, not much has been heard from him. He was appointed by the president and is only responsible to the president. The intent of that position was to insure that Roberts Rules of Order were being followed. Additionally, he would clarify questions pertaining to those rules and/or legal issues that the organization might face. Originally that office did not have a vote. The word "ex-officio" was used to describe that meaning but the membership was duped again because it actually gave him the power to vote. He was once voted out of a position by the membership but has been appointed to another position adding additional powers he and his predecessor never had before.
It is interesting to note that all 3 of these individuals have either no diving background or very limited backgrounds in coaching but they are dictating policy and using legal terminology to confuse the membership, which allows for further control of the organization. If you have never built a house yourself, how can you direct others to build one? How did we let this happen? Better yet… when are we going to put an end to all of this nonsense and bring the organization back to the purpose for which it was formed? This leadership has an agenda that precludes its own mission statement and the purpose of having a National Governing Body.