USOC board member Streeter on board with USOC boss...Streeter
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The new boss of the U.S. Olympic Committee has spent the last 10 days reporting to herself.
That is the absurd situation created by Stephanie Streeter’s decision not to resign -- at least not so far -- from the USOC board since being named the organization’s interim chief executive when the board forced Jim Scherr to resign after six years as boss.
I realize Streeter will be smart enough to recuse herself from any discussion of CEO performance, just as she did when the board voted to have her replace Scherr, a vote taken after at least one other board member had left the meeting because of another business commitment.
But the issue of Streeter’s dual roles is among those that will come up at the Monday meeting in which members of the U.S. sports federations -- a.k.a. National Governing Bodies -- will express their concern to USOC Chairman Larry Probst about their seeming disenfranchisement from the USOC governance process.
‘This isn’t about rehashing the past,’’ Skip Gilbert, head of the NGB Council, told me Saturday. ‘This is about making sure the NGBs have a better connection to the board in the future.’’
Gilbert, chief executive of USA Triathlon, will be joined at the meeting in Probst’s office near San Francisco by Steve Penny, the boss of USA Gymnastics; and board members Mike Plant, the Atlanta Braves’ executive vice president for business operations, and Bob Bowlsby, the Stanford athletic director.
Other issues that concern the NGBs are whether there will be a search for Scherr’s permanent replacement, after Probst intimated Streeter might simply segue into that role, and the status of Chris Duplanty, the USOC staff liaison between the board and the various Olympic constituencies in the United States.
Duplanty’s role had been envisioned as a volunteer position, but former Chairman Peter Ueberroth got board approval for it to be turned into a job paying about $200,000 a year over the last four years. Duplanty, who works out of a small USOC branch office in Southern California rather than the headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., apparently had planned to leave the job last year, but the situation remains unclear.
Also unclear is whether Streeter will relocate to Colorado Springs from her home in Neenah, Wis., even though it seems ridiculous she could be paid to manage a 400-person staff from hundreds of miles away, notwithstanding modern communications technology.
And to think one criticism of Scherr was his relatively hands-off management style.
Meanwhile, all parties continue to take the Pollyanna position that none of this USOC leadership turmoil will affect Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid, even though the USOC had worked diligently to build an image of stability after the decade of revolving-door leadership that ended when Scherr took over. Part of that stability was giving the International Olympic Committee members who will choose the 2016 host a feeling they knew and could trust the USOC leadership.
And though Scherr did not play any significant role in the international lobbying for Chicago, maybe he would have shown up for face time with international sports leaders at this week’s executive board meeting of the Pan American Sports Organization in Mexico. As Olympic reporter Ed Hula pointed out in this week’s editorial on his website, Around the Rings, Streeter may have missed an opportunity for face time by not attending that meeting, while Olympic committee leaders from two of the countries with 2016 finalist cities, Brazil and Spain, both were in Guadalajara.
She shouldn’t worry about that affecting her performance review. After all, board member Stephanie Streeter is on board with whatever she does.
--Philip Hersh
