Swimming in Scandal - Part 5 Sunday, June 26, 2022
We have been tracking the controversy revolving around suspended swimming coach Teri McKeever at UC-Berkeley. Below is the latest development: From the LA Daily News (6-26-22): Allegations that University of California women’s swimming head coach Teri McKeever bullied dozens of swimmers over a decades-long period are clouded by gender bias in the standards female coaches are held to, according to her attorney. What nearly 60 people have described as verbal, emotional and physical abuse by McKeever, the 2012 U.S. Olympic team head coach, is actually accepted coaching methods approved of by the university that have been mischaracterized by female athletes socialized to react to coaching and stress differently than male athletes, Thomas Newkirk, McKeever’s attorney, maintained in an interview with the Southern California News Group and documents sent to Cal administrators.
Cal placed McKeever, who has guided the Golden Bears to four NCAA team titles, on paid administrative leave on May 25 and commissioned an investigation by a Los Angeles law firm into allegations raised in an SCNG report that the coach has routinely bullied athletes throughout her 29-year career at Berkeley. To date 36 current or former Cal swimmers and divers, 17 parents, a former member of the Golden Bears’ men’s swimming and diving squad, two former coaches and two former Cal athletic department employees have told SCNG that McKeever routinely bullied swimmers, often in deeply personal terms, or used embarrassing or traumatic experiences from their past against them, used racial epithets, body-shamed and pressured athletes to compete or train while injured or dealing with chronic illnesses or eating disorders, even accusing some women of lying about their conditions despite being provided medical records by them. Nine Cal women’s swimmers, six since 2018, have told SCNG they made plans to kill themselves or obsessed about suicide for weeks or months because of what they describe as McKeever’s bullying. But Newkirk portrayed McKeever, 60, as the victim of both a double standard in how female and male coaches are viewed and judged, and a double standard in how female athletes are socialized from a young age to report stress, injuries and frustration differently than male athletes. Newkirk in a nearly hour-long interview and in documents 278
UCLA Faculty Association Blog: 2nd Quarter 2022
