Investigation expands to Cal crew coach
School looking into allegations Olympic medalist failed to report sex assault claim
BERKELEY — Rocked by a widening sexual misconduct scandal, the University of California on Thursday revealed it has hired an outside investigator to examine allegations that the Cal men’s crew coach failed to report a sexual assault claim against one of his rowers.
A former female member of the team claims coach Mike
Teti, an Olympic medalist and nationally regarded coach, knew she had been sexually assaulted in December 2013 at a crew team party. Instead of reporting it, she said, the coach told her to stop crying, saying, “You’re no angel anyway,” and asked her about her sexual relationships with other rowers.
Reached Thursday evening, Teti wrote in an email the “allegations are completely false, and I’m confident any investigation will prove this.”
The allegations come just weeks after Cal assistant basketball coach Yann Hufnagel resigned after the university found he had propositioned a female reporter for sex and revelations that diving coach Todd Mulzet was docked $455 in pay for sexually bullying a co-worker. On Thursday, the university told this news organization it is not renewing Mulzet’s contract. The coaches are part of a larger scandal that has brought down a UC Berkeley provost, law school dean, world-renowned astronomy professor and other high-profile faculty members.
The claims against Teti suggested a tight-knit, macho culture on the crew team, where women often fulfill the role of coxswain, steering the boat and coordinating the rowers. Legendary in rowing circles, Teti was described years ago in a New Yorker profile as playing “a role not unlike that of a drill instructor in a Marine boot camp — Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, from Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Full Metal Jacket.’ ”
The new investigation is the second time the university has looked into the woman’s complaint against the crew coach.
While the campus’s office of anti-discrimination determined last year that Teti had not violated the university’s sexual harassment policy, an officer told the woman in an email that she had spoken with Teti “about the kind of questions and conversations he had with you and the language he used.”
The email from UC Berkeley complaint resolution officer Paula Raffaelli also said the men’s crew coaches and athletes would receive additional training related to sexual violence and harassment, “with a specific emphasis on gender and sex stereotyping.”
The woman, whom the newspaper is not identifying because it does not name victims of sexual abuse, said in an interview she had been sexually assaulted over the years on more than one occasion, by different teammates. She quit the crew team after the final alleged assault in summer 2014. In an email to Teti, she said she feared for her safety on the team.
Two weeks later, Teti wrote back: “First, I’d like to clear up any misunderstanding you may have about our coach, athlete working relationship. I was never under the impression there was tension there.”
He told her he had notified the campus anti-discrimination office about her concerns and that she should not have to fear retaliation for reporting sexual harassment or assault.
“You should not have to resign from the team because of discomfort you may feel after reporting an incident,” he wrote. “There are ways we can manage that discomfort without you resigning from the team.”
He referred her to several counseling centers on campus, adding, “It is clear that this is a difficult time for you. … Let me emphasize again that I value you as a student-athlete and would like to address your current concerns as best we can.”
The woman’s father said he was told by UC officials Thursday the latest probe would investigate at least one of the sexual assaults his daughter reported to the university, as well as the coach’s role in reporting what he knew.
Athletic coaches are among the campus employees required to report such allegations to the campus anti-discrimination office.
Cal’s athletic department acknowledged the investigation in a statement late Thursday afternoon but said it was not able to discuss the details, citing student privacy laws. The statement said the department “will continue to work extremely hard to make sure everyone involved is held to the highest of standards across the board.”
The woman said in interviews that she awoke naked in a teammate’s bed after the team’s annual “xxxmas party,” known as “triplex,” in December 2013, after falling asleep on his couch, fully clothed. She told this news organization that Teti informed her in a one-onone meeting the following month that he knew what had happened but that he blamed her reputation and asked about her sexual relationships on the team.
“He said, ‘You’re no angel anyway,’ ” she said. “It made me so upset.”
Teti is a towering figure in his sport, having rowed in three Olympics and being an assistant or head coach of the U.S. team five times. He moved to Cal from Princeton in 2008. His teams finished in the top five at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association cham- pionships during his first five years at Berkeley.
But he promoted an attitude of negativity and hostility from the top down, said another former coxswain, Stephanie Gardner, who said she quit the team in 2012 after experiencing relentless bullying by her teammates that got so bad she became terrified to go to practice.
Gardner said she met with an assistant coach and told him about the harassment. “His response was basically, ‘This is what you should expect as a girl on this team. You just need to be tougher. I will try to keep them under control, but there isn’t much I can do.’
“Coaches should not allow harassment to happen on their team right in front of them,” she said. “They listened to it; they knew what was happening, and they didn’t care.”