Have you noticed how there is a shift of power going on in New Zealand sporting organisations recently?
Head coaches and coaches in general are being relegated to back benches while CEOs and high performance managers take centre court.
The process of "scientisation" and managerialist critique of elite sport has slowly taken hold of New Zealand sporting organisations, but coaches have, until now, still been treated with a bit of respect and reverence.
Those days, it seems, are numbered.
Power struggles between coaches and administrators are playing out in a very public way in organisations such as Canoe Racing New Zealand and Swimming New Zealand.
Two Olympic greats from the past, Paul MacDonald and Ian Ferguson, have been dumped as coaches amid speculation that their methods were dated and in conflict with the direction CEO Paula Kearns and high performance manager Wayne Mayer want to take Canoe Racing NZ.
The personal insults are flying back and forth faster than the duo could race in their heyday and it is sad to see two national heroes being treated this way.
The conflicts in swimming are not dramatic, but it seems Swimming NZ's chief executive, Mike Byrne, and performance and pathways director, Jan Cameron, are not singing from the same song sheet when it comes to disciplining Daniel Bell after he disregarded the zero tolerance for alcohol at the recent Delhi Commonwealth Games.
When did Jan Cameron move from the title of national swim coach to performance and pathways director anyway? What is with all these fancy labels and titles?
It appears that the Government and Sparc are desperate to be at the cutting edge of sport science and management practices and coaches are sometimes collateral damage in the process.
The dismal performance of the Black Caps against Bangladesh has resulted in media commentators and sport critics pointing the finger at the structure of New Zealand Cricket.
Jonathan Millmow, from the Dominion Post, for instance, suggests that sporting organisations such as NZ Cricket need to get rid of people involved in sport administration who know nothing of the game.
Macdonald and Ferguson also feel their sport is being run by an ex-rower and soccer player.
For many years, New Zealand sport was run by the old boys network - a bunch of has-beens who felt it was their right and privilege to take a place around the board table after a lifetime of playing and volunteering.
As sport moved into the professional era, however, this governance and management structure struggled.
As a result, individuals with business acumen and networks were invited into the fold, but it seems that maybe we've over-corrected.
Is it time to ensure that we have a good balance of business knowledge and sporting experience? Surely there is a place in modern sport for experience, common sense, and the very human (and thus imperfect) individuals who have been there and done that? They may be contrary and difficult to work with.
They may shoot from the hip and speak before they think. They may be parochial and narrow-minded in their focus, but they are also passionate and their experience can be priceless.
So all of you CEOs and HPMs out there, try not to be so task-focused and think about forming sustainable, working relationships with those who have invested their hearts and souls into the sport that you have been given the mandate to manage and govern.
