IRVINE – USA Swimming chief executive Tim Hinchey said he couldn’t envision Bob Bowman being appointed to a Olympic or World Championships coaching staff if Hinchey had been in charge of the organization in 2011, when Bowman sent sexually graphic texts to a former Olympian.
Hinchey, the former Colorado Rapids president, also said he would have likely fired Bowman if the coach was an employee of the Major League Soccer franchise.
“I would like to think that’s someone who wouldn’t be working for the Rapids,” Hinchey said in press conference before the Phillips 66/USA Swimming Championships Wednesday night.
The Southern California News Group reported last week that Bowman, the 2016 Olympic team and current Arizona State coach, and former U.S. national team coach Sean Hutchison sent sexual text messages and a voice message from Bowman’s cell phone to Caroline Burckle, a 2008 Olympic medalist.
“We’ve said zero tolerance with this kind of behavior, period,” Hinchey said. “So therefore I think if this happened today with one of our coaches I can’t see appointing them to an Olympic team.”
Hinchey, a former UC Irvine swimmer hired by USA Swimming in June 2017, however, stopped short of saying Bowman, the longtime coach of 23-time Olympic champion Michael Phelps, should be banned from coaching for Team USA at the Olympics Games or Worlds.
“As it relates to speculating in the future, I’ll leave that with Lindsay Mintenko now,” Hinchey said, referring to USA Swimming’s national team managing director.
“I haven’t talked to Tim about it so I haven’t had an opportunity to sit down and talk about the situation at all,” Mintenko said Wednesday night. “So it would be too premature to talk about it.”
Hinchey, however, said he would have handled the Bowman and Hutchison situation differently than USA Swimming officials did in 2011.
Burckle reported the incident and forwarded the texts and voice message to USA Swimming national team assistant coach Jack Roach, who forwarded it to Frank Busch. Busch had been hired by USA Swimming only months earlier to replace Mark Schubert, who was fired following a dispute with USA Swimming executive director Chuck Wielgus. Mintenko was a member of the USA Swimming national team staff at the time. Mintenko said unaware of the texts at the time. The texts were sent while Bowman and Hutchison were together on the East Coast.
“They were so aggressive,” Burckle told SCNG, referring to the messages.
The texts hit her, she said, “like a whirlwind.”
“I was disgusted,” Burckle said. “I felt violated, felt sad too. This was a sport that I had just left and loved, and so I felt very sad.”
Bowman has acknowledged to USA Swimming and ASU officials that he was involved in sending the texts to Burckle. Bowman apologized Burckle in 2011 as part of a conversation that also included Busch, Burckle said.
“I regret the exercise of poor judgment in being involved one evening seven years ago with inappropriate communications,” Bowman said in a statement. “I promptly apologized to the person to whom the communications were sent and my apology was accepted.”
Bowman declined to elaborate on the incident when approached by SCNG at the meet Wednesday night.
“I really don’t have any comment,” he said. “You have my statement.”
Busch put Bowman on notice about the incident in a June 3, 2011 letter that stressed “it is important you understand the severity of this situation.”
Yet less than three months later Busch named Bowman to the 2012 Olympic coaching staff. Bowman went on to coach Team USA at several major international competitions, in addition to serving at the 2016 Olympic head coach.
Busch also “highly recommended” Bowman for the ASU job in 2015, ASU officials told SCNG on Monday.
“Certainly from a criticism perspective or hindsight you know is 20/20 looking back, I don’t think that’s how I would have handled the situation, quite frankly,” Hinchey said. “At the same time, regardless of the age, gender, athlete, non-athlete, no deserves to have communication like that. We from the USA Swimming perspective, will not condone that kind of communication from anybody.”
The U.S. Center for Safe Sport is currently investigating sexual misconduct allegations against Hutchison. Hutchison this past winter became the subject of a criminal investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement in Washington state following allegations by World champion swimmer Ariana Kukors that Hutchison, her longtime coach, began grooming her for a sexual relationship when she was 13, sexually assaulted her at 16, and continued to have a sexual relationship with her and exert control over almost every aspect of her daily life until she was 24.
Kukors is also suing Hutchison, USA Swimming, Schubert, Aquatic Management Group Inc, a company owned by Hutchison and King Aquatic Club, Hutchison’s former Seattle-area club, in Orange County Superior Court, alleging that top American swimming officials and coaches ignored and covered up sexual abuse by top coaches for decades.
