USOC interim CEO Streeter surprised by NGB stir over Scherr resignation
Says she is "slightly offended" by suggestions she helped him out door
The new chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee is "surprised" amateur sports leaders created a stir over Jim Scherr's resignation and "slightly offended" by suggestions she engineered his departure.
Plenty of questions and loads of criticism have surrounded Stephanie Streeter, an accomplished businesswoman and former Stanford basketball captain, since she replaced Scherr on an interim basis Thursday in becoming the first female CEO in USOC history.
She met Wednesday at the Olympic Training Center with USA Triathlon executive director Skip Gilbert, chair of the council of national governing bodies of Olympic sports, and hopes to talk to Scherr later this week.
Meeting with Streeter should "strengthen the existing relationships and support mechanisms between the USOC and NGBs," Gilbert said after an hourlong discussion. Gilbert will meet with USOC chairman Larry Probst and board members Bob Bowlsby and Mike Plant on Monday in Redwood City, Calif.
A former USA Wrestling executive director and USOC athletes' advisory council member, Scherr, 48, vowed to provide "whatever Stephanie needs" as Streeter, 51, transitions from life in rural Wisconsin with her husband and 17-month-old twins.
Some NGB heads are steaming about the change, which comes seven months before the International Olympic Committee decides Chicago's fate in a 2016 Olympic bid and less than a year before 215 Americans compete at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
Gilbert said his group doesn't "understand why a board member would be appointed the CEO. That is just wrong." USA Wrestling president Jim Ravannack said, "Where's the accountability? Jim Scherr has made the Olympic position better than it has ever been. And you fire a guy for that? I don't think so."
Streeter said she "was not surprised at their reaction. I was surprised at what they did with that reaction. ... Jim had come up through the NGB system. He had run an NGB successfully. He knew those people well. He was an ally and a supporter. I knew there would be a lot of emotion."
Asked about newspaper reports that she lobbied her way into Scherr's job because she was upset Probst succeeded Peter Ueberroth, Streeter said, "I'm slightly offended by it. I know it's adamantly untrue. But you have to have thick skin."
In five years on the USOC board, Streeter, the former CEO of a printing, imaging and supply chain management company, has worked with most of the USOC's management team and met half of the 39 NGB bosses and about 25 of 107 IOC members.
Her first task: guide the USOC through an unstable economy that's forcing a 10 to 15 percent reduction in a 415-person staff. She'll also need to help the federation secure additional corporate partnerships and hire a chief of sport performance to take Steve Roush's spot and a director of government relations for Steve Bull.
"It's a very different animal" compared to the corporate world, Streeter said. "It's much higher profile. You're representing so many more constituencies. ... Any time you go into a new situation, you have to earn the trust of anybody you work with. While they may have trusted me as a board member, I have to earn that trust all over again."
