USA Swimming Structure - Part Two - Governance

A Board of Directors takes responsibility for the conduct and administration of swimming throughout our fine country.  They do this from USA Swimming's headquarters in Colorado Springs, CO.  While they "own"  the ship, several dozen committees at the national level steer that ship, impacting many facets of the sport, from formulating the rules, to standardizing officiating, to promoting the sport, to guiding LSCs and member clubs, to keeping our athletes safe, to funding our national team.  A list of those national level committees can be found here.

Viewing the geographic breakdown of USA Swimming in Part One of this series, one might logically assume HQ governs the Zones and Zones govern LSCs, but that's not so.  LSCs and Zones both get their direction directly from the national level.  Zones don't actually govern anything.  Instead they plan and conduct a series of zone level championship meets throughout the year.  The org chart might look something like this ...

LSCs put into motion what HQ envisions, pushing rules and policies down to the member clubs.  They sanction meets, ensuring clubs follow strict guidelines designed to promote fair play and safety.  They process athlete registrations, certify coaches and officials, validate LSC records and initiate background checks on all non-athlete members with access to our children.  In addition, they plan and hold several LSC level championship meets throughout the year.

Member Clubs, like DART, govern their teams like franchises of the Utah LSC, adhering to  guidelines set before them, while promoting their own "brand".  Many national policies, especially those designed to keep our athletes safe, materialize into team policies that can be found and read on DART's website.  You can find more nationally inspired verbiage in meet information files that define how DART-hosted meets will be conducted.  They influence just about everything we do as a team.