Amid Allegations, Comments From Teri McKeever On 2020 Appearance on Champion’s Mojo Podcast Ring Hollow

Photo Courtesy: Griffin Scott

Amid Allegations, Comments From Teri McKeever On 2020 Appearance on Champion’s Mojo Podcast Ring Hollow

The world of swimming was rocked last week by a thorough investigation into the culture created by Teri McKeever at the University of California.

An in-depth investigation by Southern California News Group found disturbing revelations about bullying and verbal abuse by the Cal coach in her nearly 30 years in Berkeley. Interviews with more than 20 swimmers and parents, plus more coming forward after the publication of the initial report, revealed a culture of favoritism, mental anguish meted out by McKeever leading to several women contemplating or attempting suicide and rampant transfers out of the Golden Bears.

It led the university to place McKeever on administrative leave last week. The ordeal calls into question the price of McKeever’s success on the pool deck, which led to four NCAA championships, 26 Olympians mentored and McKeever becoming USA Swimming’s head coach of the 2012 Olympic team.

It also casts a different light on the interview McKeever sat down for in 2020 with the Champion’s Mojo podcast, with hosts Kelly Palace and Maria Parker. McKeever spoke at length about the team’s culture, which Natalie Coughlin and Missy Franklin had praised, as one where, “there’s a huge amount of accountability.” It’s easy to see in retrospect how warped that sense of accountability became, as the SCNJ investigation points to McKeever being the sole arbiter of the standards to which swimmers were held.

One comment from an excerpt published last week in particular sounds gallingly hollow:

I know as a young coach, I really worried about, OK, how do I have the perfect team meeting? How do I have the perfect message? When’s the perfect time to say it? What I’ve really evolved into is that there is no perfect time to say it, there is not perfect message. You’re going to mess it up. I’m going to say something stupid. I’m going to misinterpret something. But if the people on my team and the people I’m working with know the intent behind my comment is to help them be their best, I am very clear on what our team goals are as a program, but I think you have to be clear on what the individual athletes’ goals are and then my job is to hold them to that, and if there’s a consistent behavior that is contrary to that, I’m going to ask them and I’m going to check in, ‘are these still your goals?’ And if they are, xyz needs to change. Either you need to change xyz or you need to readjust your goals. You don’t get to say, ‘I want to be an Olympian,’ and then miss practice three times a week.

It’s even more glaring considering the interview was conducted in the fall of 2020, per the SCNJ report, and what one unidentified swimmer endured: “McKeever continued to bully her through the fall and early winter of 2020 despite the coach being aware that she was in therapy” to the point of planning a suicide attempt.

Later in the interview, McKeever haltingly describes the give and take within her program, from the viewpoint of what has proven to be an unreliable narrator:

You can’t have it both ways. That’s not always comfortable, and I don’t always say it in a way that’s warm and fuzzy – I’ll be the first one to admit that – but hopefully people know that it’s really coming from a place of wanting to do, if you’re going to tell me that’s your goal, then I’m all in on that goal and I have to be honest and up front if I think you and I aren’t moving in the direction of attaining that goal.

A final passage seems fitting for what McKeever may face moving forward, while illustrating the delusion as to what was occurring under her watch. “Your actions, your behavior needs to match what you say you need to do,” she said, “and we’re going to hold you to that standard.”

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Last week, Champion’s Mojo earned the 2022 Communicator Award of Distinction for Individual Episode for Causes and Awareness. This award came from the Jillian Best interview, Giving Life to Others. Best is a liver transplant recipient and endurance swimmer. Her story of overcoming a hereditary liver disease, near death experience and transplant, continues to inspire her to greater heights today. She talks about the importance of organ donation, how she recovered and stays motivated to reach her goals. It is awe inspiring. You can LISTEN to this Award Winning Show HERE.

Champion’s Mojo has now celebrated 3 years of production 150 episodes, interviews with over 30 Olympic Champions, 40 Olympians, 10 Olympic coaches and many other champions, experts and heroes. The Communicator is the third award in three years, the other two being a Webby Finalist Selection and a W3 Silver Award. More on Champion’s Mojo here: www.ChampionsMojo.com

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Bh Nelson

1 year ago

There are so many D1 programs (SEC for 1) who lose swimmers to the transfer portal (one ongoing investigation had 14 leave the team) and the admin is too slow to act. How many swimmers will have damaged careers and lose their love for the sport because of bullying and mental abuse?