Swimming in Scandal - Part 3 Saturday, May 28, 2022
Once a story like this one starts, it takes on its own momentum.* See below: 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.” 194
UCLA Faculty Association Blog: 2nd Quarter 2022
