Last week's column, which commented on the resignations of Tennis Scotland's president and vice president, each of whom had cited concerns about the possibility of "cronyism" and a lack of transparency in decision making, elicited an interesting response from one of the organisation's former directors.
David Stubley, who has had a long voluntary career in tennis, rugby, curling and golf administration, and who is currently a director of Prestwick Tennis and Fitness, wrote as follows: "I read your article on Tennis Scotland and the attempts to exclude the representatives from any meaningful decision making. I was a director of Tennis Scotland about 10 years ago and what is occurring now is just a logical extension of what had gone before. In my day, though you were on the board, there was a management group which effectively ran the organisation and you quickly understood that you had no chance of being on it as selection was carefully 'controlled' so that favoured board members were members even though they might have no skills or capabilities to drive the organisation.
"This was done with the full knowledge of the [Lawn Tennis Association] whose representative at that time was Roger Draper. It was then expected of the ordinary board members to ratify decisions made by these people to give the appearance of being involved in decision making.
"This situation meant it was very easy for Tennis Scotland to instigate a corporate structure which was completely immune from the opinions or actions of the ordinary board member, who was there representing his district members who were effectively disenfranchised.
"The carrot used to persuade people was that they might become president with all the perks that would entail, so most people just kowtowed and accepted it. In many ways it parallels the Scottish Rugby Union."
When invited to elaborate, Stubley cited two trends which could be interpreted as contradicting any criticism of the now standard system model in which sports professionals rather than enthusiastic volunteers run governing bodies.
"First there are people who want to be seen to run a sport usually without the skill set, but with the ego," he said. "Second there are the parents whose sole interest is in what is good for their child, or fee-paying school, to the exclusion of the rest of the participants.
"Essentially, I believe we need a change of culture where sports have to be more selective on who is allowed to run them and less willing to accept anyone as long as they are willing to become a part of the existing and self-serving clique."
However, Stubley then made it clear that he believes the problem in tennis was the way in which key figures on the old board morphed into full-time executives running the new body, so gaining full control of how its funds were allocated. That in turn carried the obvious potential to be the worst of both worlds.
For their part, Tennis Scotland responded, saying: "There have been significant positive changes made within the governance of the organisation and the board is encouraged by the response of both our members and stakeholders to that aspect of our operation.
"The board and staff are also positively motivated and enthused by the substantial progress achieved as far as the increased participation figures within the sport in Scotland are concerned."
If so, then presumably the president and vice president got it horribly wrong when choosing to resign, but this all comes down to leadership and accountability, the capacity to bring people with you.
No one model can guarantee that, which is why any sports governing body, including sportscotland - which offered its support to Tennis Scotland, but itself controls so much funding - needs proper, regular, independent scrutiny.
In doing so, as we look for our next sporting star, the key is examining how many of our youngsters are still not getting the chance to find out whether they have what it takes to scale such heights.
AND ANOTHER THING
Talking to Claire Hamilton, the curler who claimed a bronze medal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, about her extraordinary sporting career change was inspirational.
Just months after taking up cycling, her appearance in the final of the individual pursuit at the Scottish Track Championships seemed astonishing, but to her further credit she quickly pointed out that the woman who beat her, Anna Turvey, also took up the sport relatively recently.
All of which reminded me of another interview earlier this year with Kerry MacPhee, who switched from triathlon to cycling less than a year before the Commonwealth Games and made the Scotland team as a mountain biker. Hamilton also told me she had not been among the better youngsters at PE at school. It feeds my belief that the main hindrance to developing Scottish sporting talent is that most youngsters never get the chance to find out what they are good at. This will not improve without joined-up thinking at national government level relating to education, health and the role of sport.
Get that right and there will be even more medallists for politicians and sports administrators to have photos taken with while claiming credit for their success, but those should be a by-product of a vibrant sporting scene, not something to be won at all costs by selective investment.
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