Swimmers allege UC Berkeley failed to act to protect swimmers from Teri McKeever, despite complaints going back to 1994.
After representing New Zealand at the 2010 and 2011 World Championships, Sophia Batchelor was pursued by several top U.S. college programs including Cal.
Batchelor is one of 18 former Golden Bear swimmers who are suing the University of California regents in Alameda County Superior Court, alleging that for parts of four decades, Cal officials, including Simon-O’Neill and current athletic director Jim Knowlton, prioritized athletic success over the well being of athletes by ignoring and in some cases enabling McKeever’s bullying.
The suit alleges that as early as the spring of 1994, just two years after McKeever was hired by Cal, university officials knew the coach’s “propensity for abusive coaching.” over the course of years that McKeever is alleged to have bullied swimmers on an almost daily basis and mounting pressure on the university administration by influential Golden Bears donors to fire Knowlton and Simon-O’Neill.
“It got to the point where I literally couldn’t take it anymore from Teri,” Carter told SCNG last year. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to be alive anymore. That night I literally didn’t want to be alive. It was like, ‘OK, I’m ready to die. I want to kill myself. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be alive.’”
Cierra Runge reacts after winning the 800 meter freestyle final during the 2017 Arena Pro Swim Series in Santa Clara. During a team “Secret Santa” gift exchange one season, swimmer Celina Li, an All-American and frequent target of McKeever’s bullying, received for her gift a plastic trophy labeled “Most Likely to Be Yelled at by Teri.”
Because of McKeever’s bullying and the university’s failure to effectively address it, the suit said, swimmers suffered “stress and fear manifested in numerous physical, emotional, and psychological injuries while on the team. They were deprived of their ability to make the most of the academic opportunities. All Plaintiffs left Cal traumatized and disempowered, wrongfully believing that they had failed as athletes.
“The swimmers shared that they were concerned about whether the younger swimmers would be targeted after they graduated. AD Driscoll responded that he took their allegations seriously, would monitor Coach McKeever, and would ensure that her coaching program did not continue to be abusive,” the suit said.
Shortly after Leann Toomey, an All-American, was sexually assaulted as a freshman by a fellow student at a party, McKeever during a team meeting told the swimmers, “This is what happens when you drink,” the suit said. “One day on the pool deck, as the team stood in circle formation, Coach McKeever told Sophia to step forward so that everyone could see her, and posited that Sophia looked like she had gained ten pounds,” the suit said. “After that practice, Coach McKeever called Sophia into her office and informed her that she was putting on too much weight and looked fat in her swimsuits. Thereafter, she required that Sophia give her and the assistant coach weekly food reports.
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