Ex-UC Berkeley swimmer on McKeever: ‘I honestly didn’t know how far she would go’
Scott Reid | Orange County Register | LA Daily News | May 28, 2022
When Cal women’s swimming head coach Teri McKeever finally stopped berating Golden Bears distance swimmer Anna Kalandadze during a workout toward the end of the 2019-2020 season, she gave the freshman an ultimatum. It was the second day in a row that Kalandadze had shown up at the pool on crutches after suffering a serious hip flexor injury. Kalandadze was clearly struggling, according to three people at the session when McKeever told her to get out of the water. “She pulled me out of practice and screamed at me in front of everyone,” Kalandadze said. “Teri asked me what the doctor had said. I told her he said to take it easy for a few days. Teri said there was no way I’m going to to Pac 12s if I don’t swim. She said I ‘had to suck it up or just leave.’ “It was so painful. I could barely walk. But I got back in the pool and swam.”
And swam and swam and swam for 7,000 agonizing meters, nearly 4 1/2 miles, feeling with each meter, each kick like she was being stabbed in her hip. “I was crying into my goggles the whole time,” Kalandadze said, “but I wouldn’t let anyone see.”
McKeever targeted Kalandadze for almost daily bullying from the first month the freshman was on the Berkeley campus to the moment she left the team a week before the Pac 12 Championships, Kalandadze and nine Cal teammates as well as two parents of swimmers and a former member of the Golden Bears men’s team told the Southern California News Group. “Anna was a target for Teri,” said Nick Hart, a former Cal diver.
McKeever bullied, body-shamed, swore at, held Kalandadze out of meets and trips and regularly kicked her out of practice, even as the swimmer qualified for NCAAs and trained and competed on an injury that reduced her to getting to class and around campus on crutches, Kalandadze and her teammates said. “Teri was the reason I quit,” Kalandadze said. “She was awful to me.”
McKeever, the most successful female swim coach in the sport’s history, was placed on paid administrative leave by the university on Wednesday in response to an SCNG investigation that revealed at least six Cal women’s swimmers since 2018 had made plans to kill themselves or obsessed about suicide for weeks or months because of what they describe as McKeever’s bullying.
Kalandadze is one of 28 current or former Cal swimmers who have have told the SCNG that McKeever was a bully who for decades has allegedly verbally and emotionally abused, swore at and threatened swimmers on an almost daily basis. McKeever, 60, also reportedly pressured athletes to compete or train while injured or dealing with chronic illnesses or eating disorders. “Teri destroyed Anna and almost made her quit swimming after 15 years of swimming and dreaming about Olympics,” said Olga Zelenaia, Kalandadze’s mother.
McKeever grew up in Southern California and was an All-American swimmer at USC before getting into coaching. She was the 2012 U.S. Olympic women’s team head coach and has guided the Golden Bears to four NCAA team titles. She is the subject of at least three ongoing investigations. An external investigation by a Los Angeles-based law firm commissioned by the UC Berkeley, and a U.S. Center for SafeSport investigation into McKeever were launched this week following the SCNG report. The university’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination opened a formal investigation earlier this month into allegations that McKeever recently used a racial epithet and profanities in disparaging rap music, according to five swimmers familiar with the conversation and an email to Cal detailing the incident. The investigation into the incident will initially focus on potential racial discrimination but could be expanded to also consider possible discrimination based on sexual orientation and national origin, according to confidential university documents obtained by SCNG.
“Accountability is Teri’s favorite word,” Kalandadze said. “She wants everyone to be accountable. Where is the accountability for Teri?” McKeever has declined SCNG’s requests for comment...
Full story at https://www.dailynews.com/2022/05/28/ex-uc-berkeley-swimmer-on-mckeever-i-honestly-didnt-know-how-far-she-would-go/.
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*Prior posts at:
https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/05/swimming-in-scandal-part-2.html and https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/05/swimming-in-scandal.html.
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