Following the Coach Abuse Stories Still in the Ozone
May 8, 2026by Irvin Muchnick
Late in 2021, Russell Mark, who had been high performance manager at USA Swimming in Colorado Springs for almost two decades, abruptly resigned. He was a data and video guru. His tenure was marked by whispers of inappropriate conduct.
Mark left “under a cloud of mystery,” the swimming news site SwimSwam reported at the time. “Neither he nor USA Swimming have commented on the reasons for his departure.”
Months later Mark was one of the first hires of the new CEO of the American Swimming Coaches Association, Jennifer LaMont, who assumed the helm of the Florida-based group run for many years by the sport’s most defiant child sexual abuse apologist, John Leonard. (Among other things, Leonard said, in response to concerns about coaches who perpetrate abuse, that ASCA “does not deal directly with children,” nor is that “part of our purpose in any way, shape, or form.”)
Notoriously, in the cases of historical abuser coach Mitch Ivey and others, ASCA has served as a rebound employer of swimming figures who were quietly drummed out of USA Swimming.
LaMont has yet to respond to Concussion Inc.’s multiply posed questions regarding Russell Mark. However, this morning she emailed that “I am on vacation May 13-21, 2026,” and will get back to us.
