Australia’s Carlile Swim School: Rick Curl Was Not Our Business Partner

The chief executive officer of Australia’s Carlile Swim School, Tim Ford, has responded to my query on its relationship with Rick Curl, who faces disciplinary review by USA Swimming after the revelation that he raped his swimmer Kelley Davies across several years of her early teens.

Three Carlile officials are the featured speakers this week at the world clinic of the American Swimming Coaches Association, for which Curl has been a board of directors member and president at different junctures, and which once gave Curl its Coach of the Year award.

Here is the full substance of the email I received from Carlile’s Ford:

“Mr Curl joined the organisation to meet the challenge of rebuilding our competitive program.

“Mr Curl has never been a business partner of the Carlile organisation. Mr Curl came to Australia as an employee in late 2004 on a four year contract, and returned to the US when this contract expired. After his departure from Australia, Swim Partners (a company owned by Tom Dolanand Mr Curl) and the Carlile organisation explored a potential commercial relationship – the proposed terms of which, as you can appreciate, are confidential between Swim Partners and the Carlile organisation. However, this relationship did not proceed, and the Carlile organisationand Swim Partners agreed to sever all commercial ties in November 2011 – well before we were made aware of the current allegations against Mr Curl.

“Like you, we are extremely concerned and shocked to hear of the allegations surrounding Mr Curl. Carlile has a proud and unblemished record of commitment to the highest standards of behaviour. As an international employee, Mr Curl went through the necessary background checksfrom the Australian government to gain a work permit. We have already been in contact with the relevant government authorities, and called on them to explore what steps can be taken to ensure that situations like this can never happen again i.e. that allegations of misconduct canbe buried from view by a non-disclosure agreement.”

In light of the information provided by Ford, I am amending and adding footnotes to previous posts here that identified Carlile and Curl as business partners.

Irv Muchnick