“Coach abuse knows no borders” — at Ireland’s Village Magazine
August 28, 2025USA Swimming’s Abusive Culture and Revictimizing Methods Near a Reckoning in the Case of Persistent Whistleblower Sarah Ehekircher
September 22, 2025by Irvin Muchnick
For more than a decade I’ve written extensively about the cesspool of abuse that has been the Fort Lauderdale Swim Team, whose home site is – either ironically or with quintessentially perverse appropriateness – the aquatics complex at the same location as the International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF).
Jack Nelson, coach of the 1976 U.S. Olympic women’s team and accused molester of celebrity marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, ruled the roost there for decades. One of his assistants for a time, Cecil Russell, was a twice-convicted felon (as an accessory to murder in his native Canada and as a drug trafficker in Spain).
Another assistant, Brazil’s Alex Pussieldi, peeped on ward swimmers he imported from throughout Latin America. Busted by one of those swimmers, Pussieldi physically attacked him on deck in a case the Fort Lauderdale police and the Parks & Rec department covered up. A so-called journalist for the Sun Sentinel newspaper then gave Pussieldi career counseling. He connected with ISHOF benefactor Norman Tripp – a lawyer who helped found the Alamo car rental company – as well as consultant and global lord of the rings Dale Neuberger, and wound up with both his own program in the nearby town of Davie and with the job of head coach of the Kuwaiti national team.
Pussieldi was exposed by the reporting at this site (based on a secret USA Swimming investigation, files subpoenaed by the FBI, and public records), which in turn got picked up in a 2014 cover story in the weekly newspapers of the New Times chain. While he proclaims to have left Florida, sources say he’s still in Fort Lauderdale and flying under the radar of his reputation there. He continues to house students and offer clinics to swimmers interested in training in the U.S. Simultaneously, Pussieldi has been the chief communications officer for the South American swimming governance organization, while also running a string of clinics in Brazil.
Pussieldi has come up in the backwash of my coverage of the recent extradition from Florida to Ireland of George Gibney, the most notorious unaccounted-for sex criminal in sports history. Pussieldi was among the globe-hopping bad actors in swimming cited in my article, “Coach abuse knows no borders,” for Ireland’s Village magazine, https://villagemagazine.ie/coach-abuse-knows-no-borders.
Meanwhile, ISHOF is in the middle of another controversy in Fort Lauderdale: an alleged land grab by developers that, a group of local activists say, violates the statutory and case law governing so-called P3’s, or public-private partnership deals.
Opponents of the plan are led by a group of senior, or masters, swimmers, and they make a compelling, if highly technical, case. Those monitoring and attempting to stem youth sports coach sexual abuse should know that these two topics – unbridled pursuit of profits, and abuse – go hand in hand.
Swimming infrastructure is prohibitively expensive to build and, especially, maintain. Age-group clubs are under the aegis of the Olympic Committee’s national sport governing body, USA Swimming, whose entire value system is directed toward not kids’ physical education or welfare, but rather the quadrennial medal count and the accompanying television rights and sponsorship contracts. The feeder system of this professionalized sport simply couldn’t exist without the massive subsidies of below-cost community pool rentals, plus the free labor of parent volunteers.
The Fort Lauderdale swimming community has long tried to address this issue. But members of the ISHOF board of directors now have formed a conglomerate of for-profit companies with the intent to create an amusement park, including an aquarium, surrounding the pool complex. Most of the project has been privatized, with politically connected insiders, including at least one Fort Lauderdale city commissioner, poised to reap the financial benefits.
Among the local critics fighting to stop the ISHOF deal are lifelong swimmers with impressive professional portfolios. Several from this cohort have embarked on what they call “the Jack Nelson Legacy Project,” to highlight the sordid history of the pool under the direction of the legendary coach who died 11 years ago, and to monitor the players still active.
A group spokesperson told me that the land for the proposed new project was deeded to the City of Fort Lauderdale nearly a century ago with the provision that it be used for public municipal purposes only. Opponents believe the developer and his lobbyist misrepresented the project last year when asking for permission to proceed from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The opponent group compiled a list of the conflicts of interest of individuals involved in the ISHOF makeover plans. I’ve uploaded the list to http://muchnick.net/ISHOFconflicts.pdf.
Concussion Inc.’s megaphone is a limited one for spurring serious reconsideration of the ISHOF site’s expansion and reorientation for private profit. All politics is local. Historically, the major news media of South Florida have shown little capacity for highlighting sexual abuse. Today, at the very least, they need to get on the case of the use of the land that has been a platform for sexual abuse.
