Ep 65 - Jamie Platt (Middle Atlantic Swimming)

In today's episode, we're thrilled to have Jamie Platt, the Executive Director at Middle Atlantic Swimming, join us. Tune in as Jamie shares insights, strategies, and insider perspectives on the world of swimming, coaching, and sports development. 

Transcript

00:00:03 - Introduction

This is the Your Sports Resource podcast, where each week you'll learn actionable strategies that you can implement so the operations of your club support your coaching staff and the direction of your organization. We are committed to excellence in youth sports leadership. Let's get started. 

00:00:26 - Renata

All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Your Sports Resource podcast. Today I am very lucky to be joined by or with Jamie Platt from the Middle Atlantic Swimming LSC. So Jamie is the executive director at MASI. He's been there for four years. He is a former college and age group coach. He also is on the current national development committee and then also on. What did you call that? The non what? For the Eastern Zone Directors Council.

00:01:03 - Jamie

The non-coach director for the eastern zone.

00:01:07 - Renata

Okay. The non-coach director for eastern zones. So he's very busy man in the world of swimming and conducting swimming, and we are really excited to have him on the podcast today. So thank you, Jamie, for attending and coming on.

00:01:22 - Jamie

Thanks for having me. You missed an important note. I'm a welcome colleague of yours. I love working with you, Renata. You do great work.

00:01:30 - Renata

Thank you for that. We've been working together since September of 22. I had to go back and look and see how long it had been. So it has been pretty fun. Enjoyable. I've learned a lot and laughed a lot.

00:01:44 - Jamie

That helps.

00:01:45 - Renata

Yeah, absolutely. All right. I want to start off with maybe kind of a softball, but I believe it's important. I think when we first met, one of the first things I asked you was, What is the purpose of the LSC? Because I felt like I could never get a clear answer from coaches. 

00:02:05

And I'm thinking that the listeners today, coaches, board members, or families, probably have the same perspective. They don't truly understand what the purpose of the LSC is. So could you just give us that overarching purpose of the LSC is under USA swimming?

00:02:25 - Jamie

Sure. I mean, the LSC is exactly as it's written. Local Swimming Committee. And so it's the local arm of USA swimming. That is, okay, a very bland and vague statement. But in order to run swim meets properly. Meaning within the rulebook of USA Swimming, the LSC is the sanctioning body for USA Swimming to make sure that the rules are going through.

00:02:59

The LSC is also making sure that the membership is properly registered and that they are competing at the right levels. Depending on what kind of member you are, it determines where you can swim. And it is basically making sure that our membership is registered properly, have the right standards met, requirements met, whether that is APT, SafeSport.

00:03:34

Making sure that your officials are certified. And you have the right number on the pool deck. So the times count and then what the LSC does, in the most basic sense, is process the times and put them into the national database of swims. That's the most basic part of the LSC.

00:03:53 - Renata

Okay. And you feel like, I guess the LSCs across the country all kind of operate. They operate independently and then do they also all vary in what they provide to their clubs? Do you get to decide that you're going to do specific things whether other clubs do it or not?

00:04:19 - Jamie

I think a big piece of it is that there's LSCs of all shapes and size. We all sign an affiliation agreement to USA Swimming, so there's required certain things, making sure the 990 is filed properly, making sure that the annual audit is done properly, to make sure that we're running sound organizations for USA swimming as representatives of USA swimming. The second part of it is with those shapes and sizes that allows different operations to occur depending on what your LSC needs.

00:04:58

So the needs of a small LSC, five teams. Let's say 600 kids, is totally different than 115 teams and almost 12,000 athlete members like we have in middle Atlantic. So I've said it before I became executive director, we had an administrative director, never an executive director. So that role was all operations driven, register, sanction, process the times certify that we're doing everything within the rules.

00:05:35

The cool part about my job is we've gone from operations to now thinking outside the box. How can we bring more value out of what our LSC does than just simply processing and staying within that operational box? So whether that's programs and services, whether that is being the local arm or the local resource for our clubs, connecting experts such as yourself to our clubs.

00:06:08

Using our size, we have a partner with a travel company, we have a partner with a vendor for apparel, we have partners with Speedo, which is a great deal, different things like that to further the experience of our athletes, coaches and non-athlete members, which is a big part of what I believe would allow us to grow the sport locally.

00:06:37 - Renata

Absolutely. Absolutely. So what are some of the things you know, specifically that you're doing outside of that you know original remit from USA Swimming that you're really proud of? What are some new initiatives that you have going?

00:06:53 - Jamie

I think looking back again, I'm in my 4th year doing this job. When I was hired, I was given the task of organize, connect, and reestablish the brand. And the way you open this up about what an LSC is. I think locally we have a great question that needs to be answered to our clubs and members here is, What does Middle Atlantic swimming stand for and how do we help our membership get better?

00:07:23

That's what we're all in this for is to use sport to create a better, what I'll say society. And that's a pretty big and holistic approach, but it's really something that what we looked at is how do we do what we already do and how do we do it more efficiently and better?

00:07:42

Well, I'm big into the experience that these athletes go through is going to be a difference maker. Creating memories and moments and a better experience than just going through the steps. Let's be honest. Sitting on a pool deck for 4 hours versus going outside and watching your son or daughter kick a ball or chase a ball or whatever it would be, they're total different experiences.

00:08:14

So then how do we, pardon the pun, but level the playing field to create an opportunity for people to choose swimming because their experience then is better than running around and those kinds of things? So that's really what I've been focusing on, is the experiential part of it.

00:08:37 - Renata

Can you give us an example of that experiential part?

00:08:40 - Jamie

Sure. We have gone, it seems small, but the little things. Every one of our championships this spring, we will have 11 championships in March. Okay, we'll have four, 10 and under championships where we walk them through and every heat is paraded out just like finals at a national championship.

00:09:05

You know, like, just little things. We create a pool deck and a championship experience that is not like an ABC meet or a developmental meet on the weekend. Every site will have Middle Atlantic Swimming backstroke flags. Every site will have a brand where again it matches with the reestablished a brand part.

00:09:29

The championships will all have the same logos and different things like that. But then again, creating an expectation that we can create swim meets that are different than your weekend ABC meet or more importantly than your summer league dual meets or something like that.

00:09:51

What we do is we invest in the experience, whether that be through DJs, lights, awards, different things like that. And then paying attention to our numbers. That we're not spending 4 and a half hours in the stands paying attention to what the kids are walking out with. 

00:10:14

A huge hit was last year when I showed up with our t-shirt cannon at championship meets. Shooting CO2 cannon with Middle Atlantic Swimming t-shirts. Nothing was funnier to me than seeing the father up in the stands who wouldn't come close to fitting into the small t-shirt that was shooting. But it was like it was wrapped in gold. 

00:10:36

But those kids and parents, to be quite honest, have looked at it and said, that's an experience that is different from what I'll call regular swim meet or youth sports event. So again, creating moments and creating memories.

00:10:57 - Renata

I love that, especially in the younger ones. So they kind of get bit by the bug young of like, hey, this is a lot of fun. And look at me instead of the, you know. Well, for me coming up, my brother was always drag along, one of my brothers was always drag along to the meet, and he hated it because it was an all-day affair and he only went to one day and it was boring. 

00:11:21

So that just reinvigorates the family watching, being engaged, as much as given the opportunity for the younger ones to have a bit of hoopla with their swimming. And it's not just running up to the block and jumping in. That's exciting. That's great.

00:11:38 - Jamie

Yeah. This summer we did the same thing. We were fortunate to be at a site where there was the 50-meter pool, but then next to it was a big indoor gym. We had 3 sets of cornhole boards being played from, seriously, 07:00 a.m. until 08:00 p.m. at night, nonstop. You heard the boards in play. 

00:11:59

We have a selfie station put out there for kids to get pictures and get sent to their phone or whatever it is. We had an inflatable screen that we simulcasted through a sponsorship we have and simulcasted. So even in the summer, you don't have to sit in that hot pool. 

00:12:20

You can be out in the gym, roundtables around there paying attention to what's going on in the meet. We're doing the same thing this winter in our junior champs. We're going to have dual courses running. We're going to have two inflatable screens, 20-foot screens.

00:12:36

We're going to have the scoreboard up on smaller screens so you can go in and out, pay attention to what's going on with the championship meet, and you don't have to be stuck sitting in the stands the whole time. Of course, you want to be out there in case the t-shirt cannon comes out, but it's a situation where we're paying attention to the actual reality of, again, the experience matters.

00:12:59 - Renata

Yeah, I love it. I think that's great. What gave you the idea to do that? Where did you come up with that? Because I think a lot of times when we as an organization are talking with clubs, like, one of the areas that they really struggle with is trying to get that younger swimmer to choose swimming as their sport, right? 

00:13:26

I mean, when they're young, you want them to experience a bunch of different sports as they're coming up, but as they get to that 11-12 age group, you really want them to start to decide whether or not swimming is their sport and that's what they're going to focus on. And so I love that engagement piece. And what caused you to go in that direction?

00:13:48 - Jamie

Well, I think a big piece for me, growing up swimming and growing up at the local swimming pool and having my family all in on swimming and then going and being in a community that was swimming mattered. I had great memories and I had great moments through personal experience and then go to college and have the same thing. 

00:14:10

When I was coaching college, it was about the same type of thing that it's more than swimming, it's more than the time I told my recruits when I was recruiting them. Your times, you're going to end up lying about when you get to be my age anyway. 

00:14:25

So it's more about the memories that you create along the way. And then so what is that? That's the experience. So when we look at that part of it, it's a situation of, well, how can we? Again, I'm very fortunate the LSC has given me a big ball of clay and said, make something awesome. 

00:14:47

How do we, have allowed me to interpret what awesome is? So looking at it, there's examples everywhere. People having fun at sporting events in so many different ways, whether that's going to a Phillies game and seeing the fanatic shoot a hot dog up into the upper level or paying attention to at a Sixers game. 

00:15:11

They put up a video of what the players are wearing when they walk in. There's examples in so many different ways and layers for experience. And it's something that I just think, like the Savannah Bananas, they're all about experience and baseball is part of what they're doing.

00:15:33

And there's examples all different directions and it's a matter of how do you hone in and how do you personalize that to your audience, to your membership, and not take away from the swimming. When we were growing up, swimming was the event. Now there's an event that swimming takes place at.

00:15:57 - Renata

And I see how that would really benefit the clubs as well. Because when those kids actually have fun experiences and you're creating those memories and for their families, it's more probable that they will go and talk to their friends and family and other people about what they experienced and how much fun they have, which could recruit more members into that club. 

00:16:22

So it's not only with you and the current members, but it also helps the club have an experience where it could increase their own membership through enjoying the competitive side. And really, like you said, there's an event where swimming takes place. It's not just the end result of that time in that one event or those three events, whatever it is. I love that. 

00:16:47 - Jamie

We're very fortunate. You know the greatest commodity we have in Middle Atlantic Swimming is the people or the people. You know, we had a great group of people look at our championship series and say we can hit a bigger piece of our membership with this. 

00:17:05

We now look and then we have a certain percentage at our 10 and under champs and then at our silver champs and then our junior champs and create an actual progression through there. We don't have a championship meet for everyone and you know so with that. But again, that's part of the experience. 

00:17:23

How to celebrate. I mean, one of the biggest and most important things that we have is our junior champs sweatshirt. It's really like gold and it's a situation that's a badge of honor. And it's one thing that someone said to me at one point that these kids who play on other sports, they can wear their jersey to school.

00:17:46

And that's their example. Well, what we've then said, well, we're not going to have. They're not wearing a bathing suit to school, so what are they going to wear and having those type of things, whether it's an all-star shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, or zone parka is huge. 

00:18:03

This junior champs jacket, which used to be the J.O jacket, huge deal because it's a badge of honor. So what we need to do is find a way that what these kids and swimmers and coaches and clubs look at what they're proud of and then give them more opportunities to show it.

00:18:24 - Renata

Awesome. I want to switch gears a little bit about this coming year or this past year you have been working with us and doing things on your own as well, to provide your clubs with some operational tools and programs that they can take part of that supports that club in a very different way. 

00:18:51

So you're supporting the sport through your meets and making them events, but you also are trying to move into the space of really supporting each and every club to be as operationally fit as they can be.

00:19:04

Because we know that while we try to deliver great experiences, if the organization, the business is not run well, then your reach and your impact is just going to lessen and lessen because there's discontent between staff and being able to accomplish things because they don't have enough money in house, whatever the reasons may be. 

00:19:26

And with us, we've built the swim club operations manual that you sent out to everybody. And then we also created a grant program to where you will pay a portion of the expenses for them to engage with us in a consulting, personal consulting space where they can receive organizational design and support from us. So why do you feel like this path that you're going down on supporting these clubs in an operational space, is really important for you as an LSC?

00:20:02 - Jamie

Well, I think you go back to my swim coach experience. Meaning, so you look at it and as a swimmer, you think you'd know everything about coaching and then you start coaching and realize you know nothing. You just were a swimmer.

00:20:21

So then you have to learn how to create the structure of a season plan, how to write a workout, looking at where you want to have again within the season, where you need to do speed work, and things like that. And then how to fit that workout. Basically trial through trial and error process.

00:20:43

And as you work through that, you're building a system that will then lead towards greater successes. Right? What I have seen with clubs, a lot of them have great success. A lot of them have a history of great success. And with that, that's many ways their foundational well-being is founded through their experiences. Awesome.

00:21:12

But in turn, there are also, we have 115 clubs, they all are not historic. So we need to put people again in position to be successful. So as a coach, you go, and USA Swimming has ABM and they have foundations of coaching, and they have different levels to go through in order to empower and educate and as well put these pieces in places to be successful? 

00:21:46

I'm just doing the same thing locally. How do we figure out what will make us a stronger organization, stronger membership, and a membership that has a better understanding of what goes on, what's going to allow for our coaches to coach at a higher level? 

00:22:01

Well, put them in a position to be successful, have their boards operating and doing the work that they need to do so the coaches can coach, in turn, making sure our boards know that their coaches need to be doing X, Y, and Z, so they can then govern their organization or create strategy for their organization better. 

00:22:23

A lot of these things, and I've said this a few times to different people, our sport and youth sports as a whole ramped up real quick. It used to be something that kids did. Now it's something that people are investing in. So it's a matter of looking at this as a business and paying attention to making sure that there's a return on that investment.

00:22:46

And what do you do that through? Well, you do that through a structure. We started at the most basic level of the swim club operation manual, which I think was a grand slam, something that really, again, I handed it to a bunch of different people. Everyone in our LSC, every club got a copy, and then we had to print 25 or 35 more to get more out there because they wanted more copies. 

00:23:12

They wanted their board members to read it. An education tool. Well, why was it needed? It's never really been out there in such a degree that we collaborated and created, and there's a need for this figuring out. It's a matter of not creating a new wheel, but actually, in many ways, inventing the wheel for these clubs instead of just running swim practices.

00:23:40

Unfortunately, as everything's gotten more complex, so has operations to these youth sports programs. So if you're not attentive to it it's like, again, going back to coaching and having a 400 diameter and never practicing breaststroke. There's going to be a major gap there in that race.

00:24:00 - Renata

Yeah. I had someone tell me early on that this is not corporate America. What you're trying to do is too corporate. And in a way, they're right in a small way. Right. It doesn't need to be that type of massive amount of formality. But the bottom line is, like you said, swimming has changed quite a bit. It's always been a business, but it's never been treated like the business that it truly should be. 

00:24:30

Today, we have higher expectations. There's a lot more going on within youth sports, and I think trying to, you know,  the baseline of getting everybody to understand their roles as far as what the board should be doing instead of what they assume they should be doing, and the staff doing what they're supposed to be doing and formalizing that so they know how they complement each other and run effectively so you have a great business.

00:24:57 

It's not corporate. That's just good business sense. That's just being efficient and effective and using your membership money wisely. So what I love about you taking these steps forward is what you're doing is you're telling your clubs that in order to be successful, you have to let go of some views of how it was when you were younger as a swimmer.

00:25:24 

This is more of a structured business and the problem is not always the board's fault, and the problem is not always the head coach's fault. The problem is nobody understands their roles and don't actually step into their roles to the fullest capacity and respects each other like you would in a normal, everyday business, by how you act, by how you operate, by how you talk, by how you share information, how you compliment each other. 

00:25:51

I mean, we're really good at putting goals and leadership perspectives with the kids, from a coach to a swimmer perspective, but we're not so great at doing that as adults who are trying to work with each other. 

00:26:04 - Jamie

And I find it funny because what we do and expect from those athletes whether it is a 7-year-old or a 27-year-old, needs to reflect on what we do for them as well. So as we go through that, and I'm not saying this is the formula that you have to follow. This is not mathematics. 

00:26:35

What we're trying to do is really just make more and better-informed groups to show that there's more than one way to do it. And again, I know some great coaches who used to walk into a workout and make it up as they went along. Good for them. I never had that ability. 

00:26:59

Versus the swim coach who practiced, had every workout written for a whole season before the season. I didn't have that ability either. But having that ability to adapt to your surroundings and again, invest in the people that have come to you in order to be successful. And again, success is defined differently by all many different levels.

00:27:27

To be success at the 10 and under championships is a completely different thing than to be at senior championships. And that's why the 10 and under have hot heats versus our seniors just get up and race. But it's a situation that, again, we have members that are full grown adults all the way down to, from the learn to swim level, just being introduced into competitive swimming.

00:27:55

That's a wide range. I believe that a structure can save an awful lot of frustration. What we're trying to do is create recommendations and fall back on experts such as yourself saying these are the things we see that work, whether it's in corporate America, other sports, wherever it would be. And how do you apply it to our sport? How do you apply it to our structure itself?

00:28:23 – Renata

Right. I always envision, like when my kids were playing when we would bowl when they were really young. Right. So there's like those bumpers in the gutters, and that's really what we try to provide is those bumpers, like, don't go outside the bumpers, but how you operate within the bumpers is really up to you and the programs that you have and what your vision is and what you want to offer your membership.

00:28:53

And I think that from an operations standpoint, from the board, and also from the head coach or CEO or whatever that role is, executive director, who's actually running the organization. Having that organizational structure just means that you're coming in and you're not firefighting day to day. 

00:29:13

You're not looking at your feet, your heads up, you're looking forward, you're looking strategically down the line, which is what the board should be doing. Well, you can't do that if you're not operating from a space of understanding truly what your role is, not just what you believe it is. Right? Does that make sense?

00:29:33 - Jamie

That's huge. And I love the wording, the space of understanding. It's, again, what we ask of our athletes. We're asking them to invest in themselves. We're asking them to put themselves because we are looking at their potential to be great.

00:29:48

And from an organizational standpoint, we've done all different kinds of studies and looked at our heat map of memberships and all this kind of stuff, and I think we're pretty good. But we can go from good to great in the same way. By investing in our membership, by investing in the structure that we have, by making our club stronger, by making our coaches better, by giving opportunities to our kids, by living our mission in order to fulfill themselves to their greatest ability.

00:30:28

There's nothing better as a coach to seeing a kid fulfill their potential. And now you take that same thing, and it's pretty cool to see an organization go from struggling to thriving. Yeah, it's the same kind of thing where there's other things that need to be tweaked versus, hey, you really need to work on your turns and transitions.

00:30:56

But we have to identify what turns and transitions are for clubs. We need to identify what needs to be identified for those coaches in order to be more successful. That's a fun thing where you get to be in a role of identifying the things, what people keep tripping over. And then show them that, hey, you know what? You don't have to go that way. Have you ever thought about this way or that way? 

00:31:26 - Renata

Yeah, I love that you said that. Because it's probably one of the things that brings me the greatest joy is to look at some of the clubs that we've been working with for a while, especially the ones who came to us out of just despair and not feeling like there was any way out of the hole, whatever that hole was. Right.

00:31:50

And us telling them, like, let's just go one step at a time. We'll work through it. You can do it. We'll support you. And trust me, in a year from now, this club is going to be a different club. And then two years from now, this club is going to be a different club as long as you guys stay within your lanes and do the right things and pass it off to the next board members.

00:32:10

And I think I liken that to the first time you break a minute and free, right in 100 free, it's the same thing. You look back and go, oh, my God, this was so overwhelming. I can't believe we're out of it. We are in such a different headspace. The mood is completely different.

00:32:27 

The conversation on deck is completely different. The conversation with parents and swimmers is completely different. That whole mood and that transition of feeling like you're out of survival and into thriving, it spreads all the way across the organization. 

00:32:45

So thank you for bringing that up because that is one of the biggest things that just puts a giant smile on my face is the changes in the conversations I get to have with clubs over the years of where they were to where they are now.

00:32:59

I wanted to ask you a question. I don't know if you can answer this, but I'm going to ask you anyways. So one of the things that kind of, not kind of, it is on the radar of both Matt and I is the fact that coaches. And I'm sure it's all coaches, not just swim coaches, but swim coaches are leaving the profession. And listen, it's long hours.

00:33:26

It's away from family time because the time that you're spending with other family's kids, you're spending away from your own kids and family. And yes, they choose this profession. Right. But it doesn't mean that that part of the job is not difficult. I just wonder, are you, as an LSC, concerned about the fact that we are losing coaches?

00:33:53

And I'm sure there's really good coaches in that mix. And really, coaches, you need to leave the profession in that mix. But are you at all concerned as an LSC that we are not able to retain? A lot of coaches and clubs are having a hard time finding people who want to work as a swim coach, and if so, are you thinking about what you can do in this area? I know I threw a lobbed bomb at you, so if you don't have any thoughts on it, that's okay.

00:34:22 - Jamie

Again, you know me well enough that you know I'll have thoughts. First and foremost, I think everyone needs to be paying attention to the keyword being retention. And again, going back to what we were just saying you're going to be a stronger club if you retain the people you have invested in. And that goes for parents, that goes for swimmers, and that goes for club staff, coaches, and beyond.

00:34:54

If you have to train someone in your office every year on how to go through registration, that's going to stifle the growth of the club more on deck. If you're going through that every year and then changing philosophies by the people who are implementing the program on deck. The coaches, that's going to stifle the growth of the program. There is no doubt.

00:35:23

I've been told many times the biggest thing that people are struggling with is finding the part-time coaches. Yeah, finding part-time coaches and they're paying nicely. But it's a matter of, again, figuring out what the return on the investment is. Again, when we look and break down the simplest terms of what we do. We deal with people.

00:35:49

So when we're dealing with people, we have to find a person that values what your club stands for. Right. And values what your club is doing to invest in these younger people. Right. How do we do that Well, I think we have to look at the realities of where our society is. Our society is changing rapidly in so many ways. We're more connected. Yes.

00:36:22

But so much further apart. Where we have so many different angles and so many different ways to share an opinion. But with that being said, how do we identify the people that can help realize more potential? How do we take the time to again invest in the people that, are your people already, your staff already?

00:36:53

But then B are the ones that could influence further into your organization, meaning your potential staff. How do you know what you stand for? And I think the biggest thing is understanding what your organization is about and your team is about, understanding your approach to using this sport to make lives better.

00:37:18

Understanding what your community is like and accepting what your community is like will allow you to identify better the people that will engage and then thrive in your setting. It's tougher. Yes. It's tough to keep people because again, the speed or the rate that we are moving at is a lot quicker than it used to be. 

00:37:43

The person that was there for five years at one point is now there for one. And it's unfortunate. But I also think it's a matter of how are you connecting with your people and when you have a connection with that person, it makes a disconnect that much harder on both sides.

00:38:04 - Renata

Absolutely. I agree with that. So if you're engaged in them, then they're engaged in you. And that's just obviously that sounds like common sense, but I think that from the way that these clubs are run, they're still thinking old-school ways. And I think that we as an organization at your sports resource, are really trying to focus not just head coaches, but also the board on investing in their staff. 

00:38:30

And when I say investing, that's all around from providing direction, clear-cut goals and expectations, and accountability. Okay. But then there's also, how are you upskilling them? How are you ensuring that they are learning and that they feel valued and that they can give back value? Right.

00:38:50

And I think that head coaches really need to step into that space where in the past they really were not there. I always joke around about how head coaches used to train other coaches was osmosis. If you're standing on deck next to them, that's how you're going to learn. Well, those days are gone. People want to know that they have a future. 

00:39:08

And it's not only about them doing their due diligence to upskill and learn but also to learn from whoever their manager is, their boss is. And if that's the CEO, executive director, or head coach at the highest level, they need to be able to get that from the board. The other side of that you brought up part-time is the biggest thing that I hear all the time, is that pay.

00:39:33

I hate it all coming down to pay because pay is not the only reason why people stay or leave, but it is a factor. Right? And if you're paying your hourly people less than they can literally make at whatever, Walmart, McDonald's, and they don't have to give up their personal time with their own families in the evenings or early mornings, you're not going to hold that individual. 

00:39:58

And I think this is where the boards just sit back and go, but we don't have the money. Well, you're there as a strategic leader in the organization. Why are you not raising money? And raising money is not just fundraising. Right. It's not just events and selling mums or whatever. Right.

00:40:17

It's also selling sponsorships. It's also filling out grants. And those are the things that the board should really be focused on as far as bringing money in-house to make sure there's always plenty of padding, not only for the downturns if one comes up or an unexpected, I don't know, pump blow or HVAC going out, something like that. 

00:40:40

But also to be able to help supplement your part time staff with a little bit more bump in the hourly rate. So you can keep good people on deck who may have a full time job teaching, but they love coaching and so you want to just give them a little bit more. And if you couple that with also investing time into that individual, well, you've got a coach for life and for a long time and potentially even a part time coach. 

00:41:09

It's like, hey, I want to make this my profession and I want to stick around. And I just feel like if we could just get clubs to take that step and get out of that short sightedness of, well, this is all we got and this is how it's always been done. I think it will help tremendously in the realm of keeping coaches in the profession.

00:41:30 - Jamie

Well, and again, just to follow up, there's two things that I know through our many conversations. If you take a transactional approach to your staff, you're probably taking a transactional approach to your athletes and your swimmers. And that is rooted in an organization that is just about churning people through.

00:41:56

I don't find there's that many clubs. You look at the successful clubs, they're not churning anyone through. Again, what is coaching? Coaching is investing in people. And then you add the sport into that. So it's investing into those people. So you got to coach your coaches. I had great advice from when I first became head coach in college.

00:42:19

I was told the most important recruits that you have are the ones that are already on your team. And you look at that and say, wow, it's true because you've got 25, 35 people on your team already. You can't replace 25 or 35. Again, it's about the people. And you look at an organization that is strong. They're still rooted about the people.

00:42:43

And their people are not just their athletes. Their people are not just a board role or board member or their customers, aka parents. It's about the entire staff. It's about all parts of the organization being understood as a person and then being treated like a person and knowing that they matter and that's what's going to get the next level. 

00:43:11

And not saying that the people who are struggling with finding coaches are not investing in their people. What I'm saying is sometimes with how busy we are, we forget that part, that it's still about people. 

00:43:27 - Renata

I still feel like they make the choice to not make it a priority for whatever reason. Could be too difficult, too busy, don't, time poor, whatever. But we all make decisions about what our priorities are. Maybe that's my harsh black-and-white view.

00:43:45 - Jamie

I think you're right. And figuring out and reminding yourself that, hey, remember, and resetting. And resetting the organization. That's psychology 101. Making sure that you're paying attention to the details, making sure that you're paying attention to who you are and what you want your organization to stand for. That's mission, vision, values. Right? 

00:44:14 - Renata

Right. So one last question for you. In this space where you're creating really fun events to get kids to really engage in the sport of swimming, and the fact that you are working hard with not just us, other organizations to make the operations of your clubs stronger.

00:44:43

How is that being received by other LSCs? Or are you able to share and have an opportunity to share this information with other LSCs? So they can either mimic what you're doing or have it spur ideas for them to try to do something that works for them?

00:45:08 - Jamie

Going back to the statement that I made earlier of many shapes and sizes. What works at Middle Atlantic Swimming isn't a formula that will work everywhere. Going back to what we said about the club operations manual, it's a matter of looking at, these are what we feel are successful ways of doing it, paying attention to growth, retention, and performance.

00:45:39

From a USA swimming standpoint. And then how you approach that, I think, again going back to the people side of it, paying attention to your membership, paying attention to what they look at. One of the greatest compliments I had was at a swim meet where we were looking for timers, and we didn't have enough timers to start the session.

00:46:03

And someone said, well, this is Jamie's fault. My God, I get blamed for most everything. But the logic behind this. Hear me out. The logic behind this was I reward people for sitting in the stands with my t-shirt cannon. With that. I'm like, all right, well, I kind of see that.

00:46:24

So we're going to pay attention to that and make sure we have t-shirts for our timers as well. Looking at what we do is individual and personal, and if you kind of get away from the personalization of it, you're leaving the power of sport, because especially our sport, you're racing a clock.

00:46:49

Yeah. You want to beat the person next to you, but there's two races going on, the person you're swimming against, and then on top of it, the time that you've done before. Right. So it's a very personal sport, and it’s a very personal approach, and each LSC has their own personality. So I think what works for us.

00:47:09

Yeah, there are certain things that can work for everyone. Flying a drone over your open water champs will give you a greater perspective Of your open water championships. Pretty simple, right? Having a DJ and creating an experience of a swimming different than you've done it before will create a better experience.

00:47:29

But then personalizing it, paying attention to the strengths. We're in the northeast, which is totally different than elsewhere in the country. So knowing your personality and understanding where you are and how you can make an impact, and knowing your customers, and what they value is going to be the thing that matters the most. And paying attention to them. It's one thing to know them, it's the next thing to listen to them. I totally didn't answer your question.

00:48:04 - Renata

No, you did, because I figured that was going to be the case, that everybody's going to be a little bit different, just like every club is a little bit different. There's no such thing as one size fits all. But I think that you're having successes and you're doing a lot of trial and error, what's working, what's not working, and you're breaking new ground as far as both the event side of swimming and then the operational support side for the clubs. 

00:48:30

And I think there's a lot to learn that a lot of other LSCs could potentially step into that space and make it their own, but learn from you and make it their own to be able to give back to their clubs in a very different way. And that's all I was looking for. And I hope that any parent or LSC that might be listening to this can take that on board.

00:48:53 - Jamie

Well, and I want to say this, there's two things. One is to see the fruits of what we've been doing. Going to take a couple more years, I think, for us to really evaluate. Hey, is this making an impact? But again, what I think we are doing is right-sized for us.

00:49:15

And by no means am I saying we have the formula for everyone. We're fortunate. I grew up in Middle Atlantic Swimming. Being part of the organization for many years, understanding, and then again, recruiting in this area, understanding what we are and who we stand for and those kinds of things has helped bring an outcome that is very personalized.

00:49:43 - Renata

Yeah. All right. Well, I think you guys are doing some great work, and I'm really proud to be associated both with you and with MASI. And I hope that people listening today hear this and take some of these ideas of yours and try to give us a shot and give it a go. And I think that it will only benefit the sport of swimming.

00:50:03

And I love that we agree on that as far as our philosophies in the sport, that everything that we do is for the effort of benefiting the sport of swimming and youth sports in general. Because sport itself gives back kids so much more than the actual activity of the sport of swimming. Right?

00:50:25

And the better our organizations can be, and the more fun and engaged they are, the kids reap the benefits as they move into young adults and older adults. So I love that we align on that. Well, thank you for joining today, Jamie. I really appreciate it. Yes. All right.

00:50:43 - Jamie

Great opportunity.

00:50:44 - Renata

And those of you who are listening, thank you for doing so. Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast so we can reach a bigger audience and help those such as yourself. And don't forget to visit the website yoursportsresource.com. We have other podcasts. We have tools and all kinds of articles and things that you can look up and read to help your organization. Finally, remember what is common sense isn't always common practice. Put what you learn into action. Don't just be good, be good at it. Thanks everybody.