Dustin Heise 0:00

Right on. Well, it's so good to have Adam Andrasco here today. And holy smokes, it's hard to get time with how busy schedules are. And you know, in the world of sports these days, it's absolutely nonstop. So can't thank you enough for taking some time today, Adam. Today's guest is Adam Andrasko, CEO of USA Artistic Swimming, where he's helped lead one of the most creative and demanding Olympic sports through a new era of growth, visibility, and athlete support with a background across USOPC, USA field hockey, and national sport leadership. He's built a career around serving athletes and strengthening sport from the inside and out. Welcome, my friend. Good to have time together.

Adam Andrasko 0:39

Hey, thanks, Dustin. Yeah, you're right. We had to reschedule this one once. I appreciate you reaching out to me and making this happen. I did have the luxury, though, of watching the pod with my counterpart at USA Fencing, Phil Andrews. So now we gotta see if we can one up.

Dustin Heise 0:54

Heck yeah. Absolutely. And then we'll go again with Phil, and then we'll bring her do it again to you and I. So absolutely, man. Thank you so much. Well, again, the uh the energy is always high with colleagues and and you know, as CEOs of national sport organizations, I know you know just with the number of stakeholders and just the push and the demand on always wanting to be within the world we live in, like literally trying to be the world's best. You know, we compete globally, we're all over the place, supporting athletes at each of the stages of the pathway. And, you know, ultimately, as you've continued to grow in your career now leading artistic swimming, which blends athleticism, creativity, trust. What has sport taught you about building culture in a way like few others can?

Adam Andrasko 1:35

Yeah, I mean, this is the special part about sport, right? We watch what happens on the field to play, and you know, you can talk about any sport, but what it really comes down to is what it means in society, right? Because that's the bigger impact that we all have. And I talk about it on a constant basis because when I took over at USA Artistic Swimming, the culture was eroded significantly. And so it is one thing with culture that you can't change it overnight, but man, you can destroy it in a day, right? And so what we learn is that every single day we got to show up and show up with our best, and that culture will continuously change and grow. And then one day you'll wake up and you'll say, Wow, these people think differently. They're talking differently, they feel differently. They're saying good things about each other and you and starting to collaborate. And and what sport can do as a mechanism to bring that together is unlike most things in this world, there's very few other actionable items and and systems that do that. And the beautiful part about it is it doesn't matter what sport you're talking about, right? But team sports do it better than any other. And we're just fortunate at artistic swimming and other jobs that I've had at field hockey to have teams and to have the ability to spend that much time together. My team at artistic swimming, most time spent together of any sport on the planet. We're six days a week, eight hours a day in the water together. You got to build a good team culture, right? Because if you don't, that's a miserable life to live. And they uh they do a really good job as our coaching staff, our high performance staff, and most importantly, the athletes.

Dustin Heise 3:13

Well, no question about the athleticism and the commitment and then the ability to bond and then the need to have that bond. There's maybe no other sport that you know is so connected to needing to drive performance on demand, pushing the body to its absolute limits the way that it does athletically, and then also to make sure that from an artistic and creative perspective, and then doing it all in the same time and being able to come together as a unit, maybe just share a little bit because this will be great for it doesn't like you you mentioned, it doesn't matter the sport. You know, how did you rebuild or how have you started to rebuild that culture? How did you make sure that you were able to demonstrate that you were not only listening, but able to affect that positive culture to where it's now at?

Adam Andrasko 4:00

Well, I want to first acknowledge that artistic swimming, most underappreciated sport, maybe on the planet, but definitely on the Olympic program. And for those that don't get the chance to follow it, and I might be your first introductory to it, or you don't know that synchronized swimming is now artistic swimming, sure look into it. The sport has evolved dramatically, and our athletes are absolutely incredible, true performers, but also amazing athletes themselves. And but to the point that you you ask about, again, culture and what it takes. It's every single email, right? It's every person on the team believing that you're gonna change the culture, you're gonna do it the right way, you gotta do it day over day, repetition over repetition. It doesn't matter whether you're an athlete, whether you're the CEO, or everything in between, right? You have to do those things the right way. And then you start to get people to buy in. Artistic swimming, we're in a challenging place. Our national team program was not very good, right? We were 13th in the world as a team when I took over. And then as an organization, there wasn't much trust in the national office. Um, and the national office wasn't really present in a lot of ways that the membership needed them to be. And so there was a lot of low-hanging fruit. Sure. So we took a little advantage of the low-hanging fruit. We took those things and we learned and we listened and we spoke. But again, it's a daily process over and over and over. And I don't want to harp on that, but I can't undersell the seven and a half years later. I still take that same mentality that we gotta continue to be better than we were the day before, because if we're not, that's the thing that they remember. And that's what drives culture. And I want to say one more thing in this culture development. I was very fortunate to inherit, started working on the exact same day. One of the best coaches in the world, if not the best coach in the world now, but Andrea Fuentes, who now coaches in Spain, uh, one of our rivals, but coached us at the same time. And we were locked in together. We, her staff, her husband was on our staff, Victor. We had some other coaches that were integrated, and we built a team, not just of athletes, but of an organization. And it was a real collaborative effort with her working very specifically on building the national team. That's that big, shiny thing that we all see and we believe in when we talk about Team USA. And then me and the office staff working on events, working on communication, working on social media, the visibility of what we're doing, working on philanthropy and sponsorship deals and all the things that tie into a national government body and ultimately fuel what that national team is. And day over day, we're still doing it. Uh, we're trying to do our best and make sure that people believe in us.

Dustin Heise 6:46

Again, I appreciate your humility and in honoring the team that you, you know, some of the beauty of the technical leadership you inherited and had the luxury of going alongside. But as change management occurs, how have you fortified, you know, and been able to make sure that you can continue that momentum heading in that same direction? You know, what was the process that you went through to make sure that you could keep this momentum going, especially on the technical leadership side, where it is so challenging to get that level of leadership back in and overseeing that program where I have no doubt that you're running the back of house, you know, top drawer. And, you know, how did you keep that momentum going in that direction with the technical leadership simultaneously?

Adam Andrasko 7:28

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you got to have good people, right? And right behind Andrea, Lara Tashera, who is now our chief of sport, she was an assistant coach in that program. And she knows the standard. It's my standard. It was a shared standard by all of us. Um, and we continue just to maintain that standard. You talk the same way, you act the same way, you train the same way. And when you see that standard start to be dipped below or not met, right? You got to make change. You got to have hard conversations. And we've done a good job of that, not a great job. As you said, it is very hard. As I share with you, our head coach from our Olympic silver medal winning team, transition her career back to her home country of Spain. And it's not being simplistic, right? It isn't a turnkey scenario. It's also not the same group of athletes. So when you're talking about elite-level sport, you have turnover. There's rarely ever a team, right, that does well and then returns, and especially in the Olympic program. A four-year cycle is not year over year like you would see in major sports environments. And so we are working and we have two more years to go, as exciting as that is and as scary as that is simultaneously.

Dustin Heise 8:40

Absolutely.

Adam Andrasko 8:41

But the last two years have been good. We've learned a lot, we've continued to build. It's not as though we've just rested on our laurels and hit the autopilot button. We're learning, we're growing, and these next two years, I'm really energized, really excited about.

Dustin Heise 8:55

I'm excited for you, man. Hey, how did you ultimately come to understand that sport was going to be the medium that you wanted to lead through? What was that defining moment for you where you're like, you knew that this is where I want to continue to be a leader? This is how I can have an impact on the world through this space.

Adam Andrasko 9:11

Yeah, I wish it was that radical. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right. Like, and this is just how life comes at you. The reality is I went to college to be a biology major. And specifically, I wanted to be an environment environmental science teacher. That was it, right? That was the job when I walked into college. Yeah. I did share with you earlier, I played college football, right? Very far from artistic swimming, but I can get to how we got to artistic swimming at a later point. But then I realized I didn't want to do this, like this wasn't it. And I found sport management as a major and then realized, okay, I'm passionate about this. I'm living football life every day. Why don't I learn the business side of it? And then it just took on its life of its own. I go to grad school, get my master's degree in sport management, and then the Olympic committee connects to me. And once I got the ideas of the Olympic ethos, right, the values of the Olympic movement, how exciting it is in the United States, it just sucked me right in. And so it is the space that I've spent my entire career in now. And now that I get to run a national governing body, uh, we get to impact 6,000 members every single day. I think of it as we have 59,000 Instagram followers. Everything we send out impacts their day. And we need to do it in a positive or informational way. And it's really fun to be at the top of this. It can get hectic and heavy at times, but as I sit back, relax, and really think about these things, it's a great situation to be in. And to what you said, you're impacting people's lives, whether it be at an event, whether it be an Olympic medal, whether it be one social media post, it's relevant.

Dustin Heise 10:52

Something you said earlier, too, on you know, how you've been able to grow the visibility and how you guys are continuing to focus on that visibility. How do you build the belief internally before the rest of the world catches up to understanding the beauty of this sport and just for it to be able to be that social media magnet that it has the potential to be? What are you guys doing to make that difference? And and how far off do you think the world is going to catch? I know LA is going to be a huge part of that, by the way.

Adam Andrasko 11:18

Yeah, I intentionally feed the crazy. I love to talk about the big crazy ideas. Winning a silver medal in Paris when we first started, crazy idea. Absolutely outlandish. Very few people think you can do it, right? Like fuel that crazy, especially when it's the good kind of crazy.

Dustin Heise 11:37

You're in good company.

Adam Andrasko 11:37

Yep. Yeah, escape world world, you got a surf bar on the back. There's a little bit extra going on there. And that's what we do, right? We just continue to feed the crazy, and whether that's a crazy new move in the pool or a crazy cool campaign or just a crazy post that's going to grab some good attention and do things. Now we stay in the lane to do things the right way, right? We want to stay on our brand and we want to make sure that we are a good, wholesome membership organization because we do represent the United States, but there's a lot of different creative dynamics in there. And the sport of artistic swimming, unlike any other sport, performance-based sport, lends to that kind of visual, crazy aesthetic where you can do a lot of different things and still stay grand and entertain.

Dustin Heise 12:22

Couldn't agree more. I mean, the stuff that the athletes are doing nowadays that enable and just seeing the athletic power that they're able to generate within the water to get athletes even out of the water. And you name it like I can only appreciate because I can't even fathom being able to do anything like it, but I can appreciate what it can take and just the craft itself. But I know you've worked across the Olympic system and national governing bodies. What separates organizations that truly support athletes from those that just say that they do?

Adam Andrasko 12:56

It's the exact same thing as the culture conversation. It goes right back to that. We at our organization say athletes first. And I in the most simple way, I always share this one, is when we have a board meeting, the athletes present on their side of things first. Right? It's the athlete conversation that starts it and then we move from there. And then all the intentions behind that have to follow through. So it's no secret that in the United States we've had our issues with athlete safety, athlete health and wellness, and you know, the safe sport side of those things. Yes, that's got to be first and foremost in our conversations. Don't shy away from it. Be about it, live it. And then from there, like that's the big stuff. And then from there, it's treat your athletes the right way, right? Talk to your athletes, make sure that your bylaws and everything that is important is in the right place. But I make a statement consistently. And I take this for myself. I'm not a coach per se, but as a CEO, I'll I'll change the verbiage a little bit. But it's really simple. You got to care before you coach. And if you do that, all of us are gonna be in a really good place. I've said it probably a hundred times now in different settings. Coaches are saying, you know what? Before you show up today, just care before you coach, and then go do it because your athletes will feel it.

Dustin Heise 14:16

You're darn right. It's that authenticity. Everyone knows that energy and that that ability to connect from the heart first. That just unlocks that listening. You're you're so right. Thanks for that, by the way. These are great reminders for for you and I both when we, you know, we're in the thick of it and we're just grinding and uh, you know, we got to remind ourselves. That's the beauty of it. And I just love how you open up with your board meetings and making sure that the athletes lead in and that's just spot on good leadership, Adam.

Adam Andrasko 14:43

I want to call out uh Denise Shively, our board president at the time, she started that. I mean, it's still simple and easy. And for reminders, I got some of these post-it notes sitting over here living.

Dustin Heise 14:53

Oh, dude, that's oh, but that's fantastic. Me, don't worry, you're in good company. Calendar's here, post the notes on the right, 100%. Just reminding myself I'm with you, man. You know, what has been one of the the hardest lessons you've learned as the CEO? I I mean, as a fellow CEO, we always put on a brave face no matter what, but it's always a new challenge or a problem that we got to solve. What's been one of the biggest opportunities in that learning process for you?

Adam Andrasko 15:18

Yeah, I do want to say that I don't put on a brave face all the time, right? I try to be completely authentic. And sometimes that means a tear in your eye, right? Sometimes that means a mean face, sometimes it means just absolutely being soft and listening. And so I do know what you're saying, though, and that you have to charge through and you're supposed to take care of every situation. I think the biggest, most overarching lesson that I've learned is there is no possible way that you're going to make everybody happy. Right. And once I learned that, the burden that came off of my shoulders was tremendous, where I could go into every day knowing, you know, not because I don't want to get there for everybody. I just can't make a decision that is going to appease, in my case, 7,000 constituents. Sometimes on the national team program, you're just not going to be able to make a decision that's going to make every national team member happy. And there's 13 of them. It's not always a reality. We are in a place with our sport where we're financially strapped on a consistent basis. And this is the case with a lot of national governing bodies, right? Is we're doing our best. And yeah, I want to pay my athletes more, right? I want to do more projects. I want to pay my staff more. You just can't do everything for everybody. And you that's really the hardest part of being the CEO, is when it's making those really tough decisions or moderately tough decisions that you know somebody's not going to be completely happy with.

Dustin Heise 16:48

I love the nuggets of brilliance in there, Adam. And just you opening up in that question around the authenticity and just who you continue to operate with, those values and those principles. Trust me, we're going to get a lot of good nuggets sort of breaking that down together. And uh look forward to another chat in the future on this one too, man. Thank you for that. When you think about the future of Olympic sport, what gives you the most hope? You know, where athlete culture is headed? What gives you that hope?

Adam Andrasko 17:14

Yeah, this is where I get real nerdy, right? I I love to self-proclaim myself as a student of the Olympic movement. And I love all my other counterparts. And that's why I listened to you and Phil do the podcast. I think I wanted a well, I wanted a little bit of a cheat sheet for what I was getting into, but I want to hear from everybody about what they're doing and why they're doing this. And that's really what I think is happening, right? Is we are listening and learning from each other more than we ever have before. The Olympic ecosystem is becoming sophisticated. I don't want to say and I don't want to disparage anybody before. They've done great things, but there is a lot more sophistication in the governance side of things, sophistication in the communications, sophistication in sport and sponsorship. And now we're really talking about paying athletes, being connected to athletes, caring about athletes, worrying about their retirement, their mental health and wellness on a consistent basis. These things they didn't exist, many of them, five years ago, let alone 15 years ago. And while it is a lot of resource, right? It is a lot of extra time, like it's stuff that we should have been doing, and now we are doing, whether we're being forced by government or we're being forced by public court of opinion, or, and I hope this is most of the case, we're doing it because it's the right thing to do. Those things are happening. And the space for athletes in Olympism right now is far better than it's ever been. And I can't see a way with the leadership at the highest level, right? Kirsty Coventry in America specifically, Sarah Herschelin. These people, they're caring, they're investing in an athlete one by one, and then it blends out to all of them. And I think we as national governing bodies are feeding off of that.

Dustin Heise 19:05

I think you're seeing it internationally too, as you you just mentioned, you know, everywhere it's getting more sophisticated. It is about the athletes, and you know, I think everyone is seeing that full potential. And then there's the beauty of the Olympism and wanting to support all of the athletes and athletes bonding and things of that nature. And then there's that competitiveness, so we want to always do our best, and you know, no question about that. When I think about the opportunity that you've brought to this sport, it's incredible. I just want to ask you, where do you see, you know, in a year's time, when you look ahead, where do you see yourself and this organization, you know, a defining moment that that might be able to be a look back? And you know, when we we get together in a year's time, what will you think you'll have been able to demonstrate or or accomplish along along the path?

Adam Andrasko 19:53

It's ironic that you bring up a year's time from right now, right? So August 6th. So tomorrow is two years from when we won the Olympic silver medal in Paris. Amazing. I'm doing some reflection there. At the same time, I'm looking forward, right? And that's the job of the CEO. And in looking forward, right now, we will be in between the conclusion of the World Aquatics World Championship and the start of the Pan American games. And we'll be dead in the middle. And so the world championships, any non-Olympic year is the biggest sporting event that we have, and maybe arguably, right, the biggest sporting event that there is in the world, depending if there's a World Cup or some other things like that going on. But for aquatics, undoubtedly, major event. So we'll be done with Budapest right now, at this point in time, and we'll know against the rest of the world where we stand, with one year left before the biggest and greatest sporting event in the history of man is about to take place. And so I'm really excited about what this day will look like one year from now. And that is not really dependent for me on what our overall success is at world championships. I'd love to be hanging medals around our necks at that point in time, sure. But I just want to make sure that we're trending in the right direction heading into the final year of a push towards the Olympic Games. And so that's what I foresee. That's where I get excited. There's so much more in between that, though, right? I get it.

Dustin Heise 21:23

I love that you're process driven, my friend, and uh, and you will trust that process. And there's gonna be there will be some cool byproducts.

Adam Andrasko 21:32

Yeah, I think that the bet but the biggest business part right now, right, is a year from now, is that we here already start capitalizing on the Olympic Games. The toughest part of being at artistic swimming is the financials consistently. And we have some opportunities right ahead of us to maximize our financial impact for the organization. And if we can do those things, then we'll elevate where the team sits. I'll get rid of a lot of those things that I just told you I struggle with is telling people no because we don't have a budget for it. And I'm hopeful that we get there. And honestly, long term, uh, year, two years from now, I'm hoping that this Olympic Games, and I believe that this Olympic Games will set our organization up in a place where we've never been, where whether I'm here still after that or my predecessor can take over, we're financially viable. We are Olympic medalists again, right? And and so I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm beyond one year, but one year will be a big test.

unknown 22:35

Yeah.

Dustin Heise 22:35

Amazing, man. Well, I have no doubt that you're gonna leave an incredible legacy. And and you know, they're blessed to have you, but also I know you're gonna continue to take it to other places and great places. Adam, thanks so much for your time today, my friend. We're gonna do this again for sure, and then uh we're gonna touch space with Phil. We'll do that again and we'll just keep ping ponging back and forth.

Adam Andrasko 22:53

We we can battle it out with Phil. We'll we'll battle it out on a three person pod. We'll start asking you some some skateboard questions. Love it, love it.