Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - Printable Version

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Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - mbdude - 01-31-2023

Cal fires longtime women's swimming coach Teri McKeever over alleged bullying, abuse (msn.com)

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - BobK - 01-31-2023

About time. Complaints going back 15 years.

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - cardcrimson - 01-31-2023

Wow. Just wow. There is hope for athletes' mental health concerns in sports. This is a great day. 

Hope the trend moves eastward by about 15 miles and down a level. . . .

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - BobK - 01-31-2023

St Mary’s fired their WBB coach

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - akiddoc - 01-31-2023

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/35566054/cal-fires-swim-coach-teri-mckeever-investigating-bullying-claims

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - 82lsju - 01-31-2023

(01-31-2023, 07:59 PM)BobK Wrote:  St Mary’s fired their WBB coach

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/college/article/st-mary-s-fires-women-s-basketball-coach-17754600.php#:~:text=St.%20Mary's%20fired%20women's%20basketball,administrative%20leave%20since%20Dec.%2020.

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - cardcrimson - 01-31-2023

(01-31-2023, 07:59 PM)BobK Wrote:  St Mary’s fired their WBB coach

Wow. Interesting indeed.

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - BobK - 01-31-2023

He was on administrative leave for about 5 weeks fired in the last 24 hours

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - PVTree - 02-01-2023

(01-31-2023, 07:59 PM)BobK Wrote:  St Mary’s fired their WBB coach

Which of our coaches will they try to poach?

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - CowboyIndian - 02-01-2023

Daughter of one of these guys?

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - murky - 02-01-2023

I skimmed through the report.  

I wonder how much of that mirrors what occurs with players "in the dog house" on a typical football team.  Say Harbaugh/Sherman or Baldwin.

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - BobK - 02-01-2023

Mike is her Dad.

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - cardcrimson - 02-01-2023

(02-01-2023, 11:55 AM)murky Wrote:  I skimmed through the report.  

I wonder how much of that mirrors what occurs with players "in the dog house" on a typical football team.  Say Harbaugh/Sherman or Baldwin.

In the doghouse for what? The wrong ethnicity? English not being a swimmer's first language? Being hurt? 

I found the report very, very disturbing beyond just the above. Her actions with many swimmers went way past being a tough coach, and ventured deep into bullying and mental / emotional abuse. Sadly, she's not the only coach out there who's lost sight of the line between the two.

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - murky - 02-01-2023

(02-01-2023, 12:56 PM)cardcrimson Wrote:  

(02-01-2023, 11:55 AM)murky Wrote:  I skimmed through the report.  

I wonder how much of that mirrors what occurs with players "in the dog house" on a typical football team.  Say Harbaugh/Sherman or Baldwin.

In the doghouse for what? The wrong ethnicity? English not being a swimmer's first language? Being hurt? 

I found the report very, very disturbing beyond just the above. Her actions with many swimmers went way past being a tough coach, and ventured deep into bullying and mental / emotional abuse. Sadly, she's not the only coach out there who's lost sight of the line between the two.

I don't know the situation.  This is the first I've heard of this coach, and I'm not condoning the behavior.  Maybe every swimmer of certain ethnicity was in her doghouse.  All identifying details of the athletes were redacted from the report.

But I assume that swearing and yelling at players is routine on many teams, as is questioning their effort, belittling, and lots of other stuff like that.  

If a coach is accused (rightly or wrongly) of any number of things, I suspect that a similar laundry list of transgressions to those cited in the report could be generated for many.

The most egregious specific things I recall reading about her was that she used a form of N-word in mocking rap, shared personal information about individual athletes, and pressured players to push through injury.  The last and maybe first, of those I could easily imagine have occurred often and don't make light of day.

More generally, if an institution doesn't want its coaches to be jerks and damage kids who aren't helping them win, they should make clear that they don't tolerate that behavior from coaches, rather than tolerating it for many years and then firing the coach for what they've done all along.

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triangle2 - triangle2 - 02-01-2023

(02-01-2023, 01:48 PM)murky Wrote:  More generally, if an institution doesn't want its coaches to be jerks and damage kids who aren't helping them win, they should make clear that they don't tolerate that behavior from coaches, rather than tolerating it for many years and then firing the coach for what they've done all along.

Well, this is really the issue, isn’t it. We hear so often in these cases how often student-athletes tried to raise concerns and got belittled, cut, threatened, isolated, or gaslit. Happened to me in college with a swim coach. That was a life changing bad experience. And there were no law firm investigations back in the day.

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RE: triangle2 - cardcrimson - 02-01-2023

(02-01-2023, 06:15 PM)triangle2 Wrote:  

(02-01-2023, 01:48 PM)murky Wrote:  More generally, if an institution doesn't want its coaches to be jerks and damage kids who aren't helping them win, they should make clear that they don't tolerate that behavior from coaches, rather than tolerating it for many years and then firing the coach for what they've done all along.

Well, this is really the issue, isn’t it. We hear so often in these cases how often student-athletes tried to raise concerns and got belittled, cut, threatened, isolated, or gaslit. Happened to me in college with a swim coach. That was a life changing bad experience. And there were no law firm investigations back in the day.

I'm sorry that you went through what you did, it really sucks, and as you stated, life changing no doubt. My sixteen year old is going through a similar life changing situation now. 

I have to disagree with Murky, as it's not about those who aren't helping you win. The best player on my daughter's high school polo team last year (and arguably the best player in the school's history, certainly recent history) opted to not play this year, her senior year. Why? Because the coach has treated her so badly last year. 

Sadly the coach, for no apparent reason, turned her wrath towards my kid this year. The abuse this year has been brutal. Ironically, last year the coach called my daughter "the backbone of the defense" that won the first championship in school history. So no, it's not about those who aren't helping you win. There is a much deeper issue with some coaches.

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - BostonCard - 02-01-2023

Indeed.  Wasn't there an issue with John Rittman (our former softball coach), where a contingent of players were accusing him of bullying while another group defended him and thought that the complainers were upset over playing time, etc.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Coach-s-ouster-created-schism-in-Stanford-6325754.php

In the end, I think there were NCAA violations that probably sealed his fate, but the article makes it clear that many of the allegations were "...long on opinions critical of Rittman, his staff and the medical treatment some players received, but short on examples of the coach’s shortcomings."

BC

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RE: triangle2 - murky - 02-01-2023

(02-01-2023, 07:29 PM)cardcrimson Wrote:  

(02-01-2023, 06:15 PM)triangle2 Wrote:  

(02-01-2023, 01:48 PM)murky Wrote:  More generally, if an institution doesn't want its coaches to be jerks and damage kids who aren't helping them win, they should make clear that they don't tolerate that behavior from coaches, rather than tolerating it for many years and then firing the coach for what they've done all along.

Well, this is really the issue, isn’t it. We hear so often in these cases how often student-athletes tried to raise concerns and got belittled, cut, threatened, isolated, or gaslit. Happened to me in college with a swim coach. That was a life changing bad experience. And there were no law firm investigations back in the day.

I'm sorry that you went through what you did, it really sucks, and as you stated, life changing no doubt. My sixteen year old is going through a similar life changing situation now. 

I have to disagree with Murky, as it's not about those who aren't helping you win. The best player on my daughter's high school polo team last year (and arguably the best player in the school's history, certainly recent history) opted to not play this year, her senior year. Why? Because the coach has treated her so badly last year. 

Sadly the coach, for no apparent reason, turned her wrath towards my kid this year. The abuse this year has been brutal. Ironically, last year the coach called my daughter "the backbone of the defense" that won the first championship in school history. So no, it's not about those who aren't helping you win. There is a much deeper issue with some coaches.

Likewise, sorry to hear about how your daughter was treated.  

I'm forming conjecture without personal experience in highly competitive sports.

And to be clear, in my opinion, how important a player is to a team's success shouldn't factor into the question of whether it is okay for the coach to abuse him or her.  I just assumed in my post that a coach with competitive success would value players perceived as critical to winning.

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RE: Womens Swim Cal: Mckeever fired - fullmetal - 02-02-2023

I think there needs to be some accountability from the athletic directors who oversee coaches with a history of abuse allegations.  But this hasn't traditionally been the case.  Fire the coach, and the athletic department gets to hire someone else who does the same.

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RE: triangle2 - cardcrimson - 02-02-2023

(02-01-2023, 09:46 PM)murky Wrote:  

(02-01-2023, 07:29 PM)cardcrimson Wrote:  

(02-01-2023, 06:15 PM)triangle2 Wrote:  

(02-01-2023, 01:48 PM)murky Wrote:  More generally, if an institution doesn't want its coaches to be jerks and damage kids who aren't helping them win, they should make clear that they don't tolerate that behavior from coaches, rather than tolerating it for many years and then firing the coach for what they've done all along.

Well, this is really the issue, isn’t it. We hear so often in these cases how often student-athletes tried to raise concerns and got belittled, cut, threatened, isolated, or gaslit. Happened to me in college with a swim coach. That was a life changing bad experience. And there were no law firm investigations back in the day.

I'm sorry that you went through what you did, it really sucks, and as you stated, life changing no doubt. My sixteen year old is going through a similar life changing situation now. 

I have to disagree with Murky, as it's not about those who aren't helping you win. The best player on my daughter's high school polo team last year (and arguably the best player in the school's history, certainly recent history) opted to not play this year, her senior year. Why? Because the coach has treated her so badly last year. 

Sadly the coach, for no apparent reason, turned her wrath towards my kid this year. The abuse this year has been brutal. Ironically, last year the coach called my daughter "the backbone of the defense" that won the first championship in school history. So no, it's not about those who aren't helping you win. There is a much deeper issue with some coaches.

Likewise, sorry to hear about how your daughter was treated.  

I'm forming conjecture without personal experience in highly competitive sports.

And to be clear, in my opinion, how important a player is to a team's success shouldn't factor into the question of whether it is okay for the coach to abuse him or her.  I just assumed in my post that a coach with competitive success would value players perceived as critical to winning.

Thanks. It's been a really, really tough road. My daughter quotes "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". And she's right, my daughter is incredibly tough right now. That said, it was incredibly precarious just a few months ago, and I still don't feel the worst is behind us.

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