Swimming in Scandal - Part 5

We are periodically reminded that there is more to college sports than the UCLA/Big Ten issue. As we have noted on prior blog postings, there is an ongoing swimming scandal bubbling up at Berkeley. For whatever reason, the Orange County Register, not exactly the hometown newspaper of Berkeley, seems to be on top of it. (SCNG mentioned below is the publisher of the Register.) Excerpt:

Twenty-seven Cal swimmers and 21 parents of swimmers, in a letter to Berkeley chancellor Carol Christ Wednesday, said “widespread university leadership” since the 1990s “has failed to take action” on repeated and credible allegations that Golden Bears women’s team head coach Teri McKeever has bullied and abused athletes.

The letter, signed by Olympic medalists, NCAA champions and team captains, and obtained by the Southern California News Group, is in response to a university-commissioned investigation into McKeever, who has coached Cal to four NCAA team championships. It also follows multiple complaints by current and former Cal swimmers that investigators have not focused on allegations that current Cal athletic director Jim Knowlton, Jennifer Simon-O’Neill, the athletic department’s senior women’s administrator and longtime close friend of McKeever’s, and former AD Sandy Barbour repeatedly ignored, dismissed, discounted or failed to take effective action on credible allegations of McKeever’s bullying and even enabled the coach’s misconduct.

“As program alumnae, it is an understatement to say that we are very concerned that a toxic culture in the swimming program continues to reward coaches, protect predators, and safeguard those who use outdated and trauma-inducing tactics,” the swimmers said in the letter that was also sent to Michael V. Drake, president of the University of California system, Rich Leib, vice chair of the University of California board of regents, and other Cal and UC system administrators.

The swimmers who competed for Cal from 1993 to 2020 and the parents of swimmers who signed the letter wrote that the experience of current Cal swimmers is their “first and foremost” concern.

“Our current concern is the safety and well being of the current swimmers, making sure they can train and compete and have a normal student experience this year given that the team will be under public scrutiny and in the public eye,” said Katherine McAdoo, a former Cal swimmer who helped coordinate the letter.

The university commissioned investigation and Cal’s decision to place McKeever on paid administrative leave on May 25 was prompted by an SCNG report that the coach has routinely bullied athletes throughout her 29-year career at Berkeley...

Full story at https://www.ocregister.com/2022/08/31/cal-swimmers-university-leaders-failed-to-take-action-against-teri-mckeever-for-decades/.

Of course, it is in the nature of things that the published account largely presents one side of the story, since the university is not free to discuss personnel matters.

===

You can hear the text above at the link below:

https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/swim%20berkeley.mp3