Former University of California women’s swimming coach Teri McKeever has admitted to emotionally and physically abusing Cal swimmers for more than 20 years as part of an agreement with the U.S. Center for Safe Sport, according to a confidential document obtained by the Southern California News Group.
McKeever’s admission in SafeSport’s 18-page notice of decision this week marks the first time she has acknowledged abusing Cal swimmers since a May 2022 SCNG investigation first reported dozens of allegations that she routinely emotionally and physically abused swimmers, pressured them to compete and/or train while injured and directed profanity and racist language toward them.
McKeever’s admission was part of a deal in which she agreed to a three-month suspension from participating in any events sanctioned by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and was placed on probation for 12 months following an 18-month investigation by the Center. She is also barred from contacting the swimmers who made allegations against her to SafeSport.
Current and former Cal swimmers were quick to criticize the length of the suspension, continuing to insist that McKeever, 61, should be banned from the sport for life.
“To think that that’s all they’re going to give her is a slap in the face,” said Cindy Tran, a six-time NCAA champion at Cal from 2010-14. “It’s just strange to think that a year from now she can be back on a (pool) deck coaching, and who knows with what intention. It just seems like they wanted to be done with it.
“She can be back in a year after 20-plus years of her coaching and behaving the way she has.”
Tran and other swimmers say that while McKeever acknowledged being abusive, there was no indication of remorse in the SafeSport document.
“I didn’t see anything explicitly where she says, ‘I own up to my mistakes and I was wrong,’ ” Tran said. “So it didn’t really feel like anything.”
Jon Little, McKeever’s attorney, said the former coach was “the victim of USA Swimming’s male dominated coaching system.”
“It’s sad to see one of if not the most successful female swim coach of the last 20 years be judged this way,” Little said.
McKeever, the only female U.S. Olympic swimming team head coach, coached at Cal for 29 years, leading the Golden Bears to four NCAA team titles. She was fired in January after an eight-month university-commissioned investigation concluded that she discriminated against swimmers on the basis of race, national origin and disability, including using the n-word, and abused athletes in violation of university policy.
As a condition of reaching an Informal Resolution with the U.S. Center for SafeSport, McKeever admitted that “between 2000 and 2022 (she) engaged in behavior that constitutes Emotional Misconduct while acting in the role of Head Coach of the women’s swimming team at the University of California, Berkeley. (McKeever) screamed profanities close to Athletes’ faces, encouraged Athletes to train through injuries, grabbed an Athlete by the arm, screamed and ridiculed Athletes during practice, humiliated Athletes in the presence of the team, and caused Athletes severe emotional distress.”
SafeSport acknowledged in the decision that it was unable to make a determination on dozens of allegations that took place before Center’s code was established in 2017. That included 11 allegations that between 2000 and 2016 McKeever engaged in “sexual misconduct” by conducting “Gender-related Harassment, to include repeated and excessive harassment, including acts of aggression related to (a swimmer’s) gender, creating a hostile environment.”
“In considering the totality of the circumstances surrounding the allegations that occurred between 2000 and 2016, and available policy during that time frame, the Center was unable to identify applicable policy,” according to the decision document.
Cal officials received a complaint from a Golden Bears swimmer in 2014 about a series of “team-building exercises” during a squad retreat in Marin County in which athletes were pressured to reveal sexual secrets and other information about their personal lives, SCNG first reported in May 2022. During one exercise, swimmers stood in a circle. They were told to take a step forward if they had been sexually assaulted.
More than 40 current or former Cal swimmers, including Olympic medalists and NCAA champions, 23 parents, a member of the school’s men’s team, three former Cal coaches, a former administrator and an athletic department employee 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. Swimmers and parents have also alleged that McKeever revealed medical information about athletes to other team members and coaches without their permission in violation of federal, state and university privacy laws and guidelines.
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.
During the SafeSport investigation, 19 athletes told Center investigators of more than 90 incidents of abuse between 2000 and 2022.
The SafeSport code defines Emotional Misconduct as “Verbal Acts, Physical Acts and Acts that deny support” for athletes. SafeSport reached its decision on Wednesday and informed the former swimmers Thursday.
Among the specific violations McKeever acknowledged was a February 2022 incident in which she said she grabbed a swimmer, identified by Little as Emily Gantriis, an NCAA champion, “by the arm in anger and unintentionally scratched (the swimmer’s) skin with (her) fingernails above (the swimmer’s) elbow while screaming close to (the swimmer’s face).”
Gantriis, a multiple European Championships medalist for Denmark, told SCNG in 2022 that McKeever screamed at her “almost daily.”
“‘You’re useless, you’re a piece of (expletive), you’re a piece of (expletive),” Gantriis recalled. “And she would get really close to you when she screamed. Right in your face. So close. You could feel her spit in your mouth really. She was really aggressive, really intimidating. You were really scared at that moment.”
At times McKeever would get physical, Gantriis said.
“She would grab me and tug really hard on my arm and scratch her nails into me,” Gantriis said.
Little said, “Teri was absolutely wrong to do that. There’s no excuse for grabbing her arm. She’s very sorry for that.”
McKeever denied calling swimmers “pieces of (expletive)” according to the SafeSport document.
McKeever did acknowledge screaming at a swimmer suffering from a hip injury that “you need to figure it out or get the (f—) back in the pool.”
“Yes, I did definitely yell at her and curse at her,” McKeever said. She also admitted calling the swimmer a “waste of space.”
A spokesman for Cal said the university had no comment at this time.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this report incorrectly stated that a Cal swimmer’s mother had died from Parkinson’s Disease. It was actually McKeever’s mother who died from Parkinson’s.
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