This post was prompted by an account by Kevin Smith on his dealings with USA Fencing on trying to plan the Coaches Institute. This account deals with increases in the budgeted staff for the Coaches Institute and interactions with the USFCA and Executive Director Greg Dilworth.
Given the recent posts by other long time volunteers and people who have worked with USA Fencing, this comes in a context of an organization that is having a difficult time in making its mostly volunteer staff feel respected and included. Combined with uncertainty with and a lack of transparency of the organization’s financial state, this is leading to a large amount of frustration that normally would be reserved for water cooler grumblings but is now has snowballed into a large enough issue that volunteers are coming out and detailing their issues with how they, and their projects, are treated by the organization.
The Coaches Institute program was something that many are eager to see be successful since Coaches College had not been held for several years. A good coaching educational program/camp is something that would help many coaches learn and refine their skills while also sharing ideas in the work-group environment.
In the past word has been that space in Colorado Springs and at the Olympic Training center (OTC) was extremely difficult to attain, so the idea was to create a coaching training program that did not rely on the OTC and that could become a destination spot for attracting foreign coaches or teams to come to the US for camps, training, and joint development.
At the 2012 Junior Olympics (February), Kevin Smith and Michael Marx were on site to promote the Coaches Institute and meet with members of the USFCA to work out joint support of the program. (The USFCA and Coaches College, while having similar goals, were not the same and had differing levels of accredation. This seemed to be the case here as well.)
Sometime in March, the program was changed to move the Coaches Institute to Colorado Springs and to increase the coaching staff to 10. As of the Virginia Beach NAC, the change in location had not been communicated to the membership and some coaches only found out about the location change due to a booth that Michael Marx set up next to the stenciling service at that event.
The staffing change represented an increase in the budget and would make the program no longer a break-even program but rather one that would be projected to run at a deficit. The response to concerns by Smith on running the program at a deficit was that, if the Coaches Institute was looked at in conjunction with the Future Stars fencing camp program, then the overall combination of camps would be break even as revenues from the Future Stars camp would pay off any deficit from the Coaches Institute. Questions regarding these details sent to the national office were unanswered at the time of this posting.
Citing changes being made to the program that would make the Coaches Institute run at a deficit when the approved budget was set to be a break-even (or slight profit), Kevin Smith resigned.
Below is a letter that Kevin Smith authored following a discussion with Mary Griffith about her recent blog post and his experiences:
A Volunteer’s Journey into the USFA Rabbit Hole
As I recounted to Mary Griffith my experiences with the current staff and management with the USFA in regard to the Coaches Institute she cautioned me to give a dispassionate recounting of “just the facts”. A confession is in order; I don’t believe that any human can recount history without adding color and a certain slant that benefits the teller of the story. With that warning I will do my best and leave it to the reader to decide what to believe.
I will tell you at the outset I want NO position with the USFA. I will help in limited circumstance if asked, but, I don’t want to be employed or serve on the board. I have had that position from the start…I just wanted the Coaches Institute to be a big success. I wanted a win for fencing in the USA.
In the late spring of 2011 Michael Marx was visiting me in Florida doing a weekend camp. As we were marinating ice cubes in some sort of distilled adult beverage we lamented the demise of the very successful Coaches College and chatted about the need to increase the level of coaching as a way of improving the sport of Fencing in the USA.
I have a relationship with a very good college in Melbourne that had a small history with fencing. Florida Institute of Technology expressed desire to explore the possibility of a strategic alliance and a perhaps a partnership with the USFA in the future. We had a meeting with M Marx, Jim Page, myself and 5 or 6 representatives of FIT including the President of Florida Institute of Technology. The meeting was vey positive and as an initial plan to demonstrate our commitment would have the Coaches Institute at FIT. The meeting was so positive an offer of land was made to the USFA for free should they decide to build a permanent program.
A budget was developed and approved by the board. For CI funds for 5 coaches were budgeted and my promise to the board was that we would break even or make a little on the program.
In the next months a plan was developed and I flew to Boston at my expense to work on things with Michael and he flew at his expense to Florida to finish the planning for both Coaches Institute and Future Stars.
An initial framework for cooperation with the USFCA was being developed and was from the outset challenging. Old scores, festering distrust over real and perceived injustices were a stumbling block to progress.
In this time frame Greg Dilworth entered the fray as the political go between the USFA and USFCA. For brevities sake I’ll refer to him as the ED. Immediately the process ground to a halt.
It is now December things needed to happen. Michael and I asked time and time again for USFA to put the summer programs on the website and develop a Press Release to market the CI and FS.
Nothing happened. For two months Nicole Jomantise would not answer or return my telephone calls or answer my emails. Our ED was made aware of this and was unwilling or unable to fix this.
So nothing happened. NO press release and no exposure on the website. Hours were spent with no results.
I went to the JO’s and spent 3 days in the coach’s lounge. I had the pleasure to meet folks from the USFCA including but not limited to; Rob Handleman, Peter Burcher, and Chuck Alexander. Michael and I spent hours with these gentlemen and at the end of the weekend a deal was largely in place for the certification of coaches. I’m certain I am leaving out some really great people that I spoke to, and for that I apologize. The majority of negotiations were with Rob, Peter and Chuck. Jim Page, a Prince of a guy and a great asset to the USFA was present and instrumental in our talks with the USFCA.
During the time after JO’s a great many political absurdities cropped up and were very poorly handled by our ED or in some cases simply not handled. Every time someone at USFCA and there was one party who was particularly contentious, spoke up, our carefully crafted deal with the USFCA was changed. Deals that I had negotiated on behalf of CI were changed to the detriment of the USFA. Planning for Coaches Institute was almost impossible and valuable time to market the summer programs and get the word out was being lost.
Around the beginning of March the ranks of our Coaching staff had swelled to 10. That represented another many thousand dollars of expenses that the budget could not withstand.
Enter the Press release. Now all of a sudden the press release is racing to completion with the roster of coaches listed. My concern was simply a financial one. We would lose money on CI and I had promised not to do this. Once this press release was out modifying the coaching staff to stay within budget would have been very difficult.
During the problems associated with this Kalle Weeks was copied on numerous emails. I called her with no answer or calls returned.
The last issue occurred on March 9th I resigned from all responsibilities concerning CI and FS. The last straw was our ED’s email saying that it didn’t matter if we lost money on CI we would make it back on the FS program. Notwithstanding we had not a single paid registration for the Future Stars Program.
Am I disappointed in how this was handled, yes. I have, however, left out a great number of the stupidities perpetrated by some of the parties involved. They serve no purpose in this discussion. And in fact, I probably did some stupid things too.
I care about Fencing, I care about the USFA. I am a Veteran Fencer who came to fencing only a few years ago after a 30 year involvement in another sport.
I am a Financial Professional with a number of fancy titles and 28 years of experience. I have served on 10 charitable boards in my time. I ran a Municipal Pension Fund for 12 years as Chairman of the Board.
This is an open challenge to the President and Board of Directors.
I sat through the Board Meeting that was held in Salt Lake. As a business guy I was appalled.
Our ED time and time again could not account for large losses in budget line items. His only answer was, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” After talking to a board member last night, he STILL HAS NO ANSWER! In the real world our ED would have already been fired.
Would any board member tolerate a large loss in their own account and then continue to employ a manager who could not explain what happen to their money???? Well USFA board, that is your money, my money and it has been entrusted to you watch over. You guys need to demand answers. You need to insure our money is being spent wisely. The board is responsible and accountable. Management works for YOU, the board.
Five staff members to London to the Olympics on the membership’s money and the ED can’t explain what they are going to do or why they are needed? And the ED is upset the board questions this? He made the decision to send them but can’t answer the board’s question why?
I have sent emails to Kalle requesting detail on the financial statements. I get NO real answers. Does anyone know? Why are simple answers impossible.
The USFA is in SERIOUS trouble. What is the board going to do about it?
It’s very clear we need a new President and Executive Director, yesterday.
USFA needs to spend our money wisely.
USFA needs to communicate.
USFA needs to execute and stop having meetings that mean or accomplish nothing.
USFA needs to be transparent in its financial affairs.
USFA needs to look out for the needs of all its members.
USFA needs to be responsive to all its members.
USFA needs to focus on the urgent issues until they are resolved. Its very nice to be politically correct and have a massage policy but if we don’t exist as an organization next year it doesn’t really matter…does it?
It comes down to effective leadership. We don’t have it, so nothing will change.
Respectfully,
Kevin Smith
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