Georgia Swimming Official Whines About Brandon Drawz Coverage — Then Walks Back the Criticism and Offers Nothing

by Irvin Muchnick

The former general chair of Georgia Swimming, who is now treasurer of the USA Swimming local swim committee in the region, emailed to complain, just about as vaguely as possible, that our Thursday piece, “Brandon Drawz Waits For His Next Opening in USA Swimming Bureaucracy After Internal ‘Investigation’ Clears Him,” was “100% wrong” in “that portion.”

As soon as I recovered from this blistering attack by the ghost of Yogi Berra (who is credited with having once said, “Ninety percent of hitting is half-mental”), I implored Gary Thiesen to explain what he meant and to share with Concussion Inc.’s readers the full story.

But in the tried-and-false wimp mode of swimming functionaries everywhere, both national and regional, Thiesen then allowed that he had overstated his math mixture problem by about 99 and a half percent. The long and short is that he maintains that USA Swimming’s investigation didn’t “save” Georgia Swimming from Brandon Drawz. Rather, Georgia busted Drawz all by themselves — turning him down for the job there before forwarding their information to Colorado Springs for further investigation.

OK, noted. As for just what Georgia Swimming found out, and when if ever they intend to clue in the rest of us, Thiesen clammed up.

So what the Peach State LSC’s chest-thumping about their competence in rejecting Drawz comes down to is their pride at having ensured that a violent con man with a drinking problem, who has been serially entrusted with the supervision of traveling youth athletes, is now someone else’s problem. Mission accomplished!

In his first email, the courageous and outspoken Thiesen sneered that I shouldn’t be making “a bigger idiot out of yourself than most of USA Swimming already thinks you are.”

In his second and evidently final email, in which he turned down the invitation to explain the Drawz scenario in greater depth, Thiesen wrote, “Please disregard the negative comment,” which was “definitely not my opinion.”

I responded to Thiesen that what’s important is not the perception of a journalist by “most in USA Swimming” (or is that “most of that portion of USA Swimming”?), but rather that “the organization harbors and covers up for the worst global nest of sex abusers outside the Catholic Church, and some in its leadership belong in prison.”

In case any of you were wondering, please do not disregard 100 percent of that portion.