As an outreach program that serves underrepresented populations I will definitely go on record to say USA Swimming, for the most part, is a do-nothing, leaderless organization. 

Rarely, if at all, have we ever received any assistance, guidance, suggestions, etc from them. 

We've been serving Salt Lake City's west side for nearly 14 years, but 99.5% of any support and guidance we've received over the years has come from organizations outside of competitive swimming (although I will note that ASCA has certainly been an asset to the development/growth of our coaching staff over the years).

Over the last year, we've been in the midst of attempting to open a second site (near East Palo Alto) but have had more than a bear of a time trying to find a suitable head coach for the site. We've reached out to USA Swimming to see if we could develop some sort of "fellowship" coaching partnership that could help a younger—though budding—coach looking for an opportunity in leading a smaller program (especially an individual who would understand and have perhaps grown up in a similar environment as the kiddos we're serving), but those efforts have proved fruitless.

Look, we are not searching for handouts - we generally do everything ourselves — our own high volume fundraising that provide scholarships, our own marketing, our own building and development of team structure and coaching staff, etc.... but it certainly would be nice to have a governing body that lent SOME sort of guidance or beacon for a situation like this where we might have a prime opportunity to empower a young coach and bring new kids to the sport.

We feel we're doing our part in bringing new families/members since our founding. Over the years we've served well more than 500 children iwho otherwise would NEVER have gotten into the sport due to financial obstacles (we cover all the costs for our swimmers throughout their journey in the sport) nor a local program specifically serving their community....

So I'm not surprised in the least that the numbers in this sport have dropped and that the leadership is lethargic in doing anything about it. From my own observation, they only seem to care about the top of the pyramid while forgoing the base that provides the foundation for a well-crafted, well built and ultimately successful whole pyramid.