Writers Offer Advice To USOC On Making Necessary Adjustments

With the chief execs of 46 NGBs Wednesday passing a no-confidence vote in the current USOC leadership and calling for the immediate resignation of Acting CEO Stephanie Streeter and Chair Larry Probst, UNIVERSAL SPORTS' Alan Abrahamson wrote the organization should "ditch the search" for a new CEO and "show Streeter the door now." Searches for high-level execs typically are expensive, and the USOC "hardly needs to spend the money, especially not after laying off 54 employees earlier this year." Also, the USOC's "track record with searches is not encouraging" after recent hires like Norm Blake and Lloyd Ward "contributed to the perception of the USOC as a revolving door." Probst Wednesday "enumerated the qualifications" for an appropriate replacement for Streeter, which "narrow the list of candidates to a few." The USOC should interview USA Gymnastics CEO Steve Penny and USA Swimming CEO Chuck Wielgus for the vacancy, "along with maybe a couple others. Then exercise some common sense and judgment." Abrahamson also advocated that with Probst's departure "now inevitable," it would "be better to avoid a drawn-out process." Abrahamson: "The challenge going forward is both fit and credibility. Probst’s background is not in sports. The Olympics is a sports enterprise with business attributes; it’s not per se a business, and the IOC, to be clear, is a club. Within the club, Probst will be seen for a very long time as the guy who was in charge of a U.S. effort that got 18 votes just a few short hours after the charismatic president of his country made an unprecedented personal appeal" (UNIVERSALSPORTS.com, 10/8).

CAN YOU FEEL THE HEAT? In Denver, John Meyer notes the USOC "finds itself in crisis mode a mere four months" before the Vancouver Olympics. It has a "lame-duck chief executive, sports chiefs accusing officials at the highest levels of incompetence and a potentially divisive battle for control in the offing." It "never should have come to this" and the U.S. Olympic athletes "deserve better." The USOC BOD "needs to replace Streeter with someone who grew up eating Wheaties because of the Olympians on the box, someone who loves the Olympics and understands it's an idea, not a commodity." Meyer: "They need to hire someone like Jim Scherr. Too bad they blew it back in March by firing him" (DENVER POST, 10/9).