Excutive Director Report
July 7, 2008

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One of my initial goals as USA Water Ski’s executive director was to get into the business of developing grant proposals to various granting institutions to hopefully underwrite or seed programs we found noteworthy. For us, we think it is uncharted territory and worth pursuing. Many non-profit sports
organizations invest financially and with a lot of human-resource effort to develop sponsorship dollars to fund programs or the organization in general. Most often they are not successful (we have had success in the sponsorship arena as we offer not only traditional sponsor opportunities, but also tie them to coupons to members and advertising sales for the organization’s magazine among other components). So, the grant
writing and giving program area strikes us as appealing as most non-profit sports organizations have not aggressively followed that path.

We are going to give it a shot and are now in the grant-writing mode. Our first effort will be with “The Publix Super Market Charities,” which is based in Polk County, Florida. This foundation is the public giving arm of the Publix Corporation, a large five-state grocery store conglomerate. University of Dayton intern Craig Widenski will be assisting us in putting together a proposal to (i) provide restoration dollars to the American Water Skiing Educational Foundation (AWSEF) for Lake Grew, and (ii) to underwrite a
program for physically challenged athletes with our potential partners – Newman’s Own Foundation, a foundation established in the mid 80s by actor Paul Newman to benefit physically challenged children among other charities, and Florida’s Challenged Athletes Foundation, a recently established foundation generally meant to provide equipment to any age physically challenged athlete.

Writing grants and trying to comply with the needs of a multifaceted organization (ours qualifies as multifaceted due to having nine disciplines under our umbrella) is difficult without proper input from principals in areas of concern. We are doing that now through our Water Skiers with Disabilities
Association and through the AWSEF. Even though we are going through this exercise, it is frankly a real crapshoot when it comes to the actual awarding of grant dollars. Competition is always intense as there is no shortage of worthwhile endeavors and oftentimes it takes a few submittals before an organization develops its bona fides, and creates relationships with decision-makers from individual foundations. But there is no time like the present. The protocol with this foundation group is that they examine and respond within eight weeks of submittal. We hope to submit by the middle July.

Another goal is to develop non-endemic sponsorship opportunities. Steve Upp is following that tack now along with continuing to work with current and future endemic sponsors. Non-endemic sponsors are those that are not specifically from this sport’s industry; a non-endemic is often a mainstream company. Steve is working on three non-endemic potential sponsors currently and doing so with very creative approaches. Our eventual hope is to develop several non-endemic partners along with our endemic
partners and work toward healthy business-to-business relationships. Business-to-business relationships often drive very healthy commercial outcomes.

A couple of weekends ago, I found within the Sunday New York Times an interesting set of statistics (see chart below) that identify the cost of a gallon of gasoline in various countries from throughout the world. The stats use U.S. dollars. You may have seen similar stats in other publications. If you have not seen this sort of statistical set, then take a look at these. They range from the cheapest to the most expensive (albeit often the cost of fuel is less of an influence than are the taxes imbedded within the per gallon cost):

Country Price at the Pump ( USD)
Venezuela 0.25
Iran 0.41
Saudi Arabia 0.60
Iraq 1.74
Indonesia 2.46
Mexico 2.54
China 2.84
Russia 3.79
United States 4.00
Japan 4.72
India 4.79
South Africa 4.79
Canada 5.09
Spain 7.30
Greece 7.31
Ireland 7.38
Czech Rep 7.99
Poland 8.07
Sweden 8.60
United Kingdom 8.71
France 8.78
Italy 8.85
Portugal 8.89
Denmark 8.90
Germany 8.98
Belgium 9.23
Netherlands 10.05

Looking at Europe’s stats it is obvious that Europeans have had to make significant adjustments over the years. In last week’s report I mentioned that these are exciting times, as during times of discomfort we often become our most creative. A small example within our sports niche is that Europeans have developed a network of cable ski operations. While that may not be culturally acceptable on a large scale in the USA due to our size and as we are more spread out, it works for them. I wonder what works for us.

Late last week I received an article from Wayne Goldsmith. Wayne is from Australia and is highly considered globally in the coaching universe. His article, pasted below, speaks to change in sport. Cycling has recently been going through change with the introduction of BMX in the Olympic Games, and so has swimming with the introduction of open water swimming. Other sports are going through more overt changes and meeting with some resistance. Wayne’s report makes this week’s report rather lengthy, but it
is an interesting read:

Ten Reasons Why Change is so Hard to Introduce in Sport
By Wayne Goldsmith | In Hot Topics

Change is one of the most talked about aspects of sport. But change is also one of the hardest things to actually introduce successfully and sustain in any sporting environment. Why?

Because people who introduce change are often seen as radicals or “ratbags” or people who know nothing about the sport or people who don’t understand the sport’s culture or similar negative label. Change innovators in sport have to fight through three phases to make a real difference:

1. Ridicule - Real innovators, lateral thinkers and change drivers have to first face the conservative thinkers in the sport who will label their push to change as stupid, ill informed and ridiculous.
2. Resistance - If the idea gets through Phase 1, it then meets hard opposition from people who are benefiting from the current thinking and who will fight hard to resist new ideas and any challenge to their position and beliefs.
3. Acceptance - finally if you can get through the days, weeks, months or even years of fighting, political maneuvering, back stabbing and other obstacles you have to overcome, you can introduce real change and ensure the sport progresses.

There are two true but conflicting statements I can confidently make about competitive sport:

1. Change is critical - it is essential to survive. In competitive sport, the faster you can accelerate your rate of change - faster than your opposition - the more likely it is you can sustain competitiveness and win BUT
2. Sport is incredibly conservative. It is more resistant to change than almost any other area of society and some people will resist change to the point of seeing the club or sport fail if it means changing their beliefs and their position.

How can people possibly defend this conservative position?
In sport, more than most other human endeavours, “success is a moving target”. Athletes, coaches and teams who are first at introducing new ideas and innovations and usually the winners, the champions, the gold medalists, the premiers - the success stories.

So, if change is the life blood of being successful in competitive sport, why are so many people so determined to “open an artery” and let the sport bleed to death rather than embrace the change process?

1. “It’s different here” - The most common “anti-change” comment you hear when you try to change things in sport is “it’s different here”: meaning this team or club or sport is different to the rest of the world and doesn’t need to change, evolve or improve. Rubbish!
2. “You don’t understand the culture of this sport” - whilst it is true that all sports and indeed all teams have a unique culture, what is also true is that the core principles of success apply to every sport and team regardless of their culture.
3. “We don’t have the money to change” - another common “anti change” comment. My experience working with hundreds of sports in 25 countries is that money is rarely the real issue. The most common impediments to effective change all over the world always has been and still are personalities (i.e. people standing in the way of change) and politics.
4. “We’re on top so we don’t need to change” - it is harder to sustain success and repeat winning than it is to do it a single time so logically, the people most in need of change are those who have been successful. They are the people most likely to believe they have hit on the “secret formula to success” and will resist change to the “secret formula” harder than any group.
5. “That’s not the way we do it here” - a painful destructive mindset which often permeates when former players and coaches from the sport’s “glory years” sit on the Board and believe the solutions to the Club’s current problems lie in going back to the past.
6. “You’ve never played the game” - there is no doubt that current and former players can add significant value to the quality of leading any team, but rejecting the ideas, suggestions and expertise of anyone who hasn’t played the game is a guarantee of failure. It’s like saying the only people who can listen to music must be musicians or the only people who can go to art
galleries must be artists.
7. “We need to introduce change slowly” - a great idea……..if you want to improve slowly and let your competition get away from you.
8. “We have this dominating, hard headed, old Chairman who refuses to change - we will never get anything going” - guess what? There is one of these in every sport, in every team, in every country in the world. The “old administrator” who has been in a position for 30 years and will do anything to cling to power. Unfortunately this is a fact of life - get over it, work around
them and get on with it.
9. “I can’t get people to buy into the need to change” - another fact of life. Greek Philosophers BC have written about peoples’ resistance to change - it is one constant in a universe that thrives on change. A fundamental skill of great leaders is to convince people that change is necessary
and to get them to support the new direction.
10. “It’s too difficult to change” - No it’s not. Everyday things change. Technology. The way we eat. The way we travel. The way we communicate. Everything is constantly changing and evolving. If you can’t change, then you are out of pace with the rest of the Universe.

Summary:

1. Think of the great people in sport, in life, in science, in art, in literature - why do we admire and respect them? Because they were different and difference means change: uniqueness is an advantage: being the leader in the introduction of change is a prerequisite for greatness.
2. Change is uncomfortable for most people but in elite sport it is as essential as having a training field, a quality training program and the right equipment if you want to be successful.
3. If you want things to change - be prepared to fight, fight hard, fight long but fight fair. Let the conservative thinkers in your sport do the dirty stuff, the name calling, tell the lies etc - just keep fighting a good, hard, clean fight and in the long run, you will win.
Wayne Goldsmith

I hope everyone survived July 4th weekend

Steven M. Locke
Executive Director
slocke@usawaterski.org

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