Cal, Olympic swim coach Teri McKeever accused of abuse: Report
Cal swimming and diving coach Teri McKeever, a former U.S. Olympic head coach, is accused of verbal and emotional abuse, bullying and threatening athletes in a report revealed by the Orange County Register on Tuesday.
McKeever reportedly “routinely bullied” swimmers by screaming and swearing at them and used racial epithets and profanities in rap music. She allegedly pressured athletes to coach regardless of proof of bodily causes for sitting out and shared confidential medial data. McKeever, a former Pac-12 swimmer at USC, reportedly focused a couple of swimmers every year and sometimes focused LGBTQ swimmers. She typically shamed her swimmers in entrance of different groups, coaches and swimmers.
Athletes and their mother and father have filed complaints about McKeever since not less than 2014, they instructed the Register, however nothing got here of it. Scott Carter, the daddy of swimmer Danielle Carter, instructed the Register, “she’s Teflon Teri, nothing sticks to her.”
McKeever is without doubt one of the most extremely adorned swimming coaches on the earth. She was the primary and solely feminine head coach of the U.S. Olympic crew when she led them to the 2012 London video games and labored as an assistant in 2004 and ’08. She’s been at Cal for 30 years and earned 9 Pac-12 Coach of the Yr honors in addition to 4 NCAA championships. Her six Nationwide Swimmer of the Yr winners embrace Natalie Coughlin and Missy Franklin. She has coached 26 swimmers who collectively gained 36 Olympic medals.
Cal swim coach accused of abuse
4 members of the 2021-22 crew have already transferred or entered the portal and half of the present crew is “terrified” to go to apply due to the coach’s bullying, the Register reported. McKeever would reportedly be indignant about unhealthy practices, weight, accidents, sickness “and even the look on their faces.”
Danielle Carter, is considered one of “not less than six Cal girls’s swimmers since 2018 who made plans to kill themselves or obsessed about suicide for weeks or months” due to McKeever’s conduct, per the report.
One reportedly thought of crashing her automobile and one other stated she had “very graphic” ideas about it. One other instructed her boyfriend she wanted one thing “that may bodily cease me from having to go to that apply. Like I did not wish to go that badly that I used to be keen to chop myself open,” she instructed the Register. McKeever at one level made a comment to on current swimmer about suicide.
“Teri stated, ‘I’m stunned you haven’t killed your self, you’re combating swimming, combating class,’” the swimmer remembered McKeever telling her. “That actually took me again. I actually didn’t know what to do with that data.”
When mother and father had been looped into video calls about points, it grew to become combative, per the report.
Points raised since 2014 relating to abuse
Swimmers and oldsters said they raised issues about McKeever to athletics director Jim Knowlton and government senior affiliate director athletes director Jennifer Simon-O’Neill, per the Register. She can be the senior lady administrator. These complaints had been “ignored or met with indifference.”
Former swimmer Chloe Clark instructed the Register she met with Simon-O’Neill to complain about body-shaming points and the discharge of medial data, which violates federal privateness legal guidelines. Simon-O’Neill reportedly stated she would discuss to McKeever concerning the privateness difficulty, however “Teri is producing Olympians, she’s an Olympic coach. There’s actually nothing extra I can do for you.”
“That was actually disappointing,” Clark stated, by way of the Register. “I finally left as a result of the ambiance is so unhealthy. Everybody there may be afraid of Teri and swimming in concern. Meets aren’t enjoyable. Everyone seems to be crying. You’re simply swimming in concern. I feel she produces athletes by concern issue. And so they’re so scared and so they wish to carry out so effectively that they’re not getting screamed at or bullied. I assume it really works for some folks however when it comes to psychological well being, ladies are usually not OK there. I actually like hope somebody listens.”
Studies of abuse in teaching are coming to mild extra typically in sports activities and leagues across the nation. The NWSL experienced a reckoning last yr and collegiate coaching allegations have spanned basketball, soccer and extra. The Olympic improvement applications, specifically gymnastics, have additionally handled allegations of poisonous and unhealthy environments.
Typically occasions these allegations date again years or a long time, however have been coated up or ignored. Some coaches swap jobs earlier than it catches up with them, and the previous faculty wipes its palms with the state of affairs.
