Investigate Cal's knowledge of swim coach's bullying
Cal swim coach Teri McKeever was fired Jan. 31 for discriminating against swimmers on the basis of race, national origin and disability, including using the n-word, and abusing athletes in violation of university policy.
Now the university and the UC system need to investigate the extent to which Cal's leadership played a role in enabling McKeever's unacceptable behavior.
McKeever was fired after an independent investigation outlined the full extent of her misconduct over a span of three decades. McKeever denies the allegations and plans to sue the university.
The nearly 500-page report revealed that McKeever said “the University knew of her coaching methods and of prior complaints and had not found her conduct problematic or violative of any policies.”
But the investigators also said they had not been retained “to investigate the University's knowledge of Coach McKeever's conduct or its past responses to allegations of misconduct by Coach McKeever.”
The university must come clean on its leadership role in the scandal. If the athletic department and the chancellor's office knew the degree of abuse of athletes and took no action, heads should roll.
It's the only way to bring closure to this dark period of the university's history and begin to rebuild trust in the program.
Last May, in an exit interview, four Cal seniors on the 2021-2022 swim team met with athletic director Jim Knowlton and senior associate athletic director Jennifer Simon-O'Neill to complain about McKeever's bullying and verbal and emotional abuse. Knowlton told them McKeever was just a hard, tough coach whom they would appreciate in coming decades. It's precisely the type of attitude that permeated athletic locker rooms in past decades when coaches justified routine verbal abuse in the name of winning. But the report reveals that McKeever told investigators that in a draft performance evaluation for the year she had not received the negative feedback.
In August, 27 Cal swimmers and 21 parents of swimmers — including Olympic medalists, NCAA champions and team captains — sent a letter to UC Berkeley's chancellor charging that “widespread university leadership” since the 1990s had failed to act on repeated and credible allegations that McKeever had bullied and abused athletes.
McKeever's successes are clear. She is the only woman to serve as head coach of the U.S. Olympic swim team. The Golden Bears have had eight national college swimmers of the year and won 66 NCAA individual or relay titles during her time as coach.
But at what cost?
Nine Cal women's swimmers, six since 2018, have told the Southern California News Group that they made plans to kill themselves or obsessed about suicide for weeks or months because of what they describe as McKeever's bullying.
Cal owes the team's athletes and the entire community full transparency into its failure to provide for the well-being of the swimmers. The situation demands an investigation of university leaders' role in supervising the women's swim program.