By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
James Sutherland and Madeline Folsom contributed to this report.
Update #1: USA Swimming has confirmed that the report was made to SafeSport after Rawak was announced as the new CEO.
Chrissi Rawak withdrew from the position of USA Swimming CEO when USA Swimming became aware of a SafeSport complaint regarding her conduct while a coach at the University of Michigan. Rawak resigned within 24 hours of USA Swimming being notified of the allegation.
USA Swimming released a statement in response to a SwimSwam request about the allegations on Saturday afternoon.
USA Swimming’s Statement:
Today’s news is concerning and disappointing to USA Swimming and our broader community. The fundamental responsibility of USA Swimming, above all else, is to protect the safety and well-being of our athletes.
In the past few days, USA Swimming was made aware, for the first time, of the existence of a report that was filed with the U.S. Center for SafeSport after Chrissi Rawak‘s appointment was announced. These matters, which we are only now coming to understand, were previously unknown and were not disclosed to USA Swimming during the rigorous vetting process of Ms. Rawak. This process was led by a reputable search firm and a dedicated stakeholder task force, followed well-established best practices, and was conducted with the highest possible degree of due diligence, including external reference and background checks.
Immediately upon receiving limited information from the Center earlier this week, USA Swimming raised the matter with Ms. Rawak (with approval from the Center, which has exclusive jurisdiction over this claim), at which point Ms. Rawak informed us of her decision to resign. We are and remain bound by confidentiality obligations under the SafeSport Code, which we take very seriously in order to protect the integrity of the reporting process and of any athletes involved. This matter remains exclusively with the Center.
The initial resignation cited “unforeseen personal circumstances that we learned about late this week” and Rawak sent a text to staffers at Delaware citing the death of her mother-in-law as the reason for her decision to not take the job as USA Swimming.
The complaint was made to SafeSport after she was announced as USA Swimming CEO.
The USA Swimming CEO position has been vacant since the fall, when Tim Hinchey left the role. He had been in the position since 2017.
SWIMMING & COACHING CAREER
A native of Newton, Pa., Rawak grew up competing for Germantown Academy in Fort Washington and was a member of the school’s 1987 national championship team.
Growing up training under Germantown coach Dick Shoulberg, Rawak’s primary event focuses were the 1500/1650 free, 200 back and 400 IM. “Everyone was a distance swimmer” training under Shoulberg, Rawak told SwimSwam on Wednesday.
She then went to the University of Michigan, where she was a member of the women’s swim team from 1988 until 1992 before serving as an assistant coach for the women’s team under Jim Richardson from 1992 until 1997. Rawak also oversaw the Wolverine Swim Camp during her coaching tenure.
She has worked in athletics and university administration since 1997 at Northwestern, the University of Michigan, and the University of Delaware. She has served as the University of Delaware’s athletics director since 2016, when she became the first woman to hold that job on a full-time basis and one of the few female athletics directors in NCAA Division I Athletics.
SwimSwam reached out to Rawak on Friday evening asking her about the decision to leave; Rawak responded to that email on Saturday afternoon asking for privacy for her family, but has not yet responded to a second email asking about the allegations.
The US Center for SafeSport also did not respond to a request for comment.
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