A number of present and former Cal ladies’s swim workforce members mentioned they're stunned and anxious that attorneys conducting an investigation into allegations that Cal’s head coach Teri McKeever bullied swimmers for many years haven't requested them about Jennifer Simon-O’Neill, senior government affiliate athletic director and the coach’s longtime shut pal, or about athletic director Jim Knowlton’s dealing with of repeated credible complaints about McKeever’s alleged abusive habits.
Knowlton and Simon-O’Neill, the swimmers, dad and mom and their supporters preserve, enabled McKeever’s alleged bullying by repeatedly ignoring or dismissing complaints from swimmers, dad and mom and different directors and college staff concerning the coach or defending McKeever and her teaching strategies.
Present and former Cal swimmers, their dad and mom, and a former college administrator have additionally questioned the independence of the investigation of McKeever, citing battle of curiosity considerations concerning the agency, Munger, Tolles and Olson, employed by the college to conduct the probe.
Brad Brian, a former all-conference Cal baseball participant, is chair of Munger, Tolles and Olson, the agency’s prime place. Brian is among the Cal athletic division’s main fundraisers and lately led a marketing campaign to construct seashore volleyball and softball amenities for the college, in keeping with the college. He's one in all solely two recipients of the Robert Gordon & Ida Sproul award for the “most excellent contribution to the college,” in keeping with Cal and Brian’s Munger, Tolles and Olson bio.
Allegations that McKeever bullied swimmers for greater than a quarter-century together with different abuse circumstances involving Golden Bears coaches recommend that the college has a “systemic downside” that the Berkeley School Affiliation mentioned must be “urgently” addressed by the college’s administration.
The Berkeley School Affiliation launched the assertion to the Southern California Information Group in response to questions on Cal’s dealing with of the McKeever case as greater than 50 present and former Golden Bears swimmers and their dad and mom in addition to former Cal directors, coaches and staff proceed to push for the firing of athletic director Knowlton and Simon-O’Neill, who till Might supervised the ladies’s swimming program.
A former Cal administration official mentioned prime athletic division officers have been conscious of McKeever’s alleged abusive habits towards athletes “for years.”
The swimmers and their supporters are additionally essential of Cal chancellor Carol Christ and Michael Drake, president of the College of California system, for not intervening within the McKeever matter.
“The silence speaks volumes,” mentioned the previous Cal administrator.
McKeever, who has guided the Golden Bears to 4 NCAA workforce titles, was positioned on paid administrative depart on Might 25, the day after the Southern California Information Group reported that the coach has routinely bullied athletes all through her 29-year profession at Berkeley.
Thus far 36 present or former Cal swimmers and divers, 17 dad and mom, a former member of the Golden Bears’ males’s swimming and diving squad, two former coaches, a former Cal administrator and two former Cal athletic division staff have advised SCNG that McKeever, the one girl to function head coach of a U.S. Olympic swim workforce, routinely bullied swimmers, usually in deeply private phrases, or used embarrassing or traumatic experiences from their previous in opposition to them, used racial epithets, body-shamed and pressured athletes to compete or practice whereas injured or coping with power diseases or consuming issues, even accusing some ladies of mendacity about their circumstances regardless of being offered medical information by them.
“Your primary job as an administrator is to guard the scholar athlete, the youngsters. There’s no means (athletic division officers) didn’t know if there’s that a lot data there, this was an avalanche,” a former college administrator mentioned. “Everyone can’t be improper. (Athletic division officers) have been enabling Teri with their refusal to close it down.
“This has to cease!” the administrator continued, their voice elevating. “This has gone on for years.”
Swimmers and oldsters have additionally alleged that McKeever revealed medical details about athletes to different workforce members and coaches with out their permission in violation of federal, state and college privateness legal guidelines and tips.
9 Cal ladies’s swimmers, six since 2018, have advised SCNG they made plans to kill themselves or obsessed about suicide for weeks or months due to what they describe as McKeever’s bullying.
“The Berkeley School Affiliation is deeply alarmed by allegations of abuse in direction of scholar athletes by coaches,” James Vernon, BFA chair, wrote in a press release to SCNG.”The cluster of circumstances round soccer, ladies’s soccer and swimming suggests there's a systemic downside that urgently must be addressed by campus. It's all the extra disturbing on condition that the Chancellor continues to subsidize the athletics program $25 million a 12 months, leaving apart the massive debt burden of the soccer stadium, whereas there's such an pressing want for extra Title IX and psychological well being employees on campus.”
The Berkeley Tutorial Senate mentioned in a press release to SCNG that “the interactions which were described within the press are deeply disturbing and antithetical to UC Berkeley’s values as an academic establishment. But it's also a elementary worth that each one members of our neighborhood are entitled to due course of when accusations are made in opposition to them and that due course of is a crucial facet of civil society. The Senate helps the college’s processes for reporting and addressing incidents of bullying. An investigation of the allegations in opposition to Teri McKeever is underway. We consider the investigation workforce has acceptable distance from the campus to be unbiased and the expertise to offer an intensive and truthful accounting of occasions. We stay up for an acceptable decision in due time.”
Members of the Golden Bears’ ladies’s workforce have been advised they are going to be coached by Dave Durden, Cal’s males’s head coach, and that the 2 packages might be merged at the very least for the foreseeable future, in keeping with 5 folks aware of the state of affairs. The transfer has not been introduced by the college.
“Dave Durden might be appearing because the Director of Cal Swimming which permits him and his employees to work immediately with each the ladies’s and males’s swimming and diving packages whereas the present coach is on depart,” Cal spokesman Dan Mogulof mentioned. “When packages are mixed, the NCAA permits an extra coach to be on employees to assist each packages, and that's what we're doing.”
U.S. Middle for SafeSport investigators have additionally interviewed a number of present and former Cal swimmers as a part of a separate probe into allegations that McKeever, the one girl to function head coach of a U.S. Olympic swimming workforce, repeatedly violated SafeSport guidelines relating to bullying, bodily, verbal, and emotional abuse and retaliation.
Cal retained Munger, Tolles and Olson in Might. The investigation, in keeping with the college, is being led by Hailyn Chen and Lauren Bell. Chen succeeded Brian as co-managing associate on the agency.
“I’m a proud alum of UC Berkeley and a supporter of Cal Athletics and gender fairness,” Brian mentioned in a press release. “I had nothing to do with our agency being employed to research the allegations in opposition to Coach McKeever, have performed no function in any respect in that investigation, and haven’t mentioned the investigation with anybody at Cal. Accomplice Hailyn Chen, a nationwide chief in investigations involving allegations of abuse, is main the investigation. I'm assured that Hailyn will conduct an intensive and impartial investigation.”
Christ and Knowlton haven't been involved with Brian because the McKeever investigation was launched, Mogulof mentioned.
“The college by no means has, and by no means will search to affect an investigation’s final result,” Mogulof mentioned. “We have now a profound and non-negotiable institutional curiosity in studying the reality about critical allegations of misconduct and coverage violations.”
Present and former swimmers and their dad and mom have criticized what they describe as an absence of urgency with the investigation. A few of McKeever’s alleged victims mentioned it has taken weeks for Munger, Tolles, and Olson and longer nonetheless to schedule interviews. Swimmers mentioned they have been advised that investigators didn't have their contact data, though the ladies had beforehand been contacted by Cal fundraising and alumni organizations.
“It's understood there's a robust want for fast, concerted motion,” Mogulof mentioned. “But, as per the legal guidelines and insurance policies that govern how we function, and as per the norms that govern judicial and investigative processes on our campus and throughout our nation, everyone seems to be entitled to due course of, and everybody’s proper to privateness is protected. We do not need the flexibility to bypass these legal guidelines and insurance policies. As soon as all that's entailed in due course of is accomplished, the management of the college is greater than able to be held accountable for ensuing choices. For now, we want to reiterate, that when the present management of Cal Athletics and the campus are made conscious of allegations that insurance policies have been violated, or of complaints about worker habits, they reply shortly and appropriately, both by managerial intervention or by referral of the matter to acceptable campus investigative places of work, when required.”
A former Cal swimmer mentioned she spent almost an hour of a 2 1/2 hour interview explaining to investigators how faculty swimming labored. Whereas some ladies interviewed by investigators have mentioned they felt heard, others have mentioned the interviews have been extra targeted on harm management and limiting the college’s publicity in anticipation of lawsuits. One swimmer, who mentioned she deliberate to commit suicide due to McKeever’s bullying, mentioned she was shocked and enraged when an lawyer questioned whether or not she was really suicidal.
However present and former swimmers additionally expressed frustration that investigators’ questioning has primarily targeted on McKeever and never on Knowlton and Simon-O’Neill, who the swimmers preserve enabled and defended McKeever.
4 Cal seniors on the 2021-22 roster met with Knowlton and Simon-O’Neill final spring and alleged bullying and verbal and emotional abuse by McKeever, in keeping with three folks aware of the assembly. Knowlton advised the swimmers that McKeever was only a exhausting, powerful coach who they might respect within the coming many years, in keeping with the three folks.
Knowlton, a former West Level hockey participant and profession Military officer, has repeatedly talked concerning the significance of the student-athlete expertise since being employed by Cal in 2018.
“Clearly, they’re simply paying lip service to that,” the previous administrator mentioned. “Almost 40 children at Cal, all sharing one thing related and terrible, a determined cry for one thing to be executed. Jim and Jenny failed to guard them.”
Simon-O’Neill has usually been known as “Title IX Jenny” across the Cal athletic division, in keeping with swimmers and former Cal athletic division staff, a reference for her advocacy for girls’s sports activities and girls coaches.
“However when it got here to defending ladies,” the previous administrator mentioned, “nothing was executed.”
Present and former Cal swimmers mentioned once they went to Simon-O’Neill with allegations about McKeever’s abusive habits the administrator both dismissed their complaints or cited McKeever’s document of successful NCAA and Pac-12 titles and producing Olympians.
“There needs to be repercussions for this or else it simply continues,” mentioned a mum or dad of a present Cal swimmer. “For Simon-O’Neill it definitely looks like the fox guarding the hen home in the obvious means. (Simon-O’Neill) was there as a part of the protecting scheme.
“I don’t understand how you don’t blame the chief of the group. This appears just like the protection of a coach who grew up with teaching philosophies which are now not acceptable in trendy swimming.
“It’s not like this got here out of nowhere. Why didn’t the college do something?”
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