How one’s action leads to misunderstanding

It’s going to be a brief personal experience of mine, where my actions lead to other’s misunderstanding.

Working previously in the sports department for a private secondary school, 2007 turned out to be an unforgettable year for what my school swimming team and I have went through. We emerged champion of all secondary school in the state in the annual government organized swimming competition. All the hard work of preparing early and tremendous effort was awarded handsomely when lifting the overall champion trophy.
With all those in mind, out of the blues, I had the craziest idea. It was so sudden that I still can’t believe that I have actually managed to accomplish it. It came suddenly to be that since my swimmers and I were on a roll, why not we try to attempt our name in the Malaysia Book of Records? What I have planned initially was to create a record, the longest swimming relay. Later on I found out that there was already such a record, hence, the goal was to rewrite the record. The previous record holder was University Sains Malaysia. They had set a record of relay swimming for 50 hours non-stop by a group of 30 students. According to the rules of Malaysia Book of Records, to rewrite a record, we are to be in distinguish of 20% of the time limit. So, it meant 60hours of non-stop swimming for us.
To cut things short, I have little time to prepare a lot of things. By the end of it, we accomplished a new RECORD! 72 hours officially recognized by the judges of Malaysia Book of Records. We managed the feat with only 14 swimmers including me with each of us taking turns to swim 30minutes at each go. The local media featured us throughout the attempt and we were famous locally.
After all is done, it was about time for a mid year review of the school’s progress in all matters. What I have done for this record, was brought up in the school’s general meeting. Without doubt at all, praises came in waves. What was unexpected, I was complained and criticized by a minority of the colleagues. My intention was just to keep good events in a roll for our swimming team, and having tones of fun with my swimmers who had trained and sacrificed so much.
A list of what was criticized :
1) What is the meaning behind all this? I was said to be using the students to gain popularity and good impression for my personal benefits
2) I was wasting time and financial resources.
3) I was risking my swimmers academics as I used up most of their time for training sessions to prepare for the record attempt.
4) I was using the swimmers to pave the road for my future promotion, salary raise and bonuses pay.

It really shocked me. These things coming out from the mouth of teachers!!! Honestly, I was just planning to have fun and to create unforgettable memories for ourselves. My intentions were innocent, but yet, others who do not know me well, manage to derive to such claims.
Well, I hope this is not boring, relating my experience on how what I did, lead to misinterpretations of others which was hurtful for me.
P/S : give me sometime, I’ll upload some pictures of the record I mentioned ^^