USA Swimming Asked Why They’re Withholding Media Credentials. Answer: Because.

by Irvin Muchnick

As noted Monday, USA Swimming will not give Concussion Inc. media credentials for this weekend’s Santa Clara Grand Prix. Your correspondent now must decide whether to fork out $15 for a session ticket, or whether he has better things to do, such as washing the dishes.

The calculation is made even more one-sided by the likelihood that if I did manage to confront a swimming official or, say, Michael Phelps, with a question about the generation-long cover-up of youth coach sexual abuse in their sport, I wouldn’t get much more than a grunt in response.

In an email today, Scott Leightman, USA Swimming’s new director of public relations and communications – in other words, the latest flack being paid six figures out of the dues of 400,000 members, for the purpose of supporting the lies of his $908,432-a-year boss, executive director Chuck Wielgus – explained the decision to bar us: “Credentials are granted to those who meet the policies set forth by USA Swimming. You do not meet those requirements.”

Thanks for clearing that up!

Whether or not I wind up choosing to attend as a paid spectator, I challenge the Bay Area media, in their coverage this weekend, to get a word in edgewise about the most undercovered scandal in sports – now under investigation by both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.