UC Berkeley is taking additional steps beyond Teri McKeever firing

UC Berkeley is taking steps to address issues raised by an eight-month, $2 million investigation that led to the firing of Golden Bears women’s swimming head coach Teri McKeever, the most successful female coach in the sport’s history.

A university spokesman declined to respond directly when asked on Thursday if those steps included investigating Jim Knowlton, Cal’s athletic director, and Jennifer Simon-O’Neill, the school’s executive associate athletic director and a long-time friend of McKeever’s who had direct supervision over the Golden Bears women’s swimming program for years.

“While we won’t confirm that an investigation is ongoing nor will we contest or challenge any reporting that suggests as much,” Dan Mogulof, university assistant vice chancellor, said in an interview with the Southern California News Group.

The university’s confirmation that it is taking additional steps beyond McKeever’s January 31 firing was in response to a series of questions from SCNG about the McKeever investigation and whether Cal had plans to follow up on issues raised by the probe.

“Speaking generally there is nothing more important to the university than the health and well-being of our students and this administration will never hesitate to respond in an appropriate manner when it’s made aware of information related to the health and well-being of our students,” Mogulof said.

The investigation’s heavily redacted nearly 500-page report substantiated allegations of bullying and discrimination over a period of decades first disclosed by the SCNG last May, finding that McKeever, who coached Cal to four NCAA team titles, 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.

After interviewing 147 people and reviewing 1,700 documents, attorneys for Munger, Tolles & Olson, the Los Angeles-based law firm hired by the university, concluded “by a preponderance of the evidence that Coach McKeever discriminated against certain student-athletes, in certain instances, on the basis of race, national origin and disability.” The attorneys also found McKeever’s behavior “toward some, but not all, student-athletes in some instances was abuse and violated University policy.”

But for dozens of current and former Cal swimmers, McKeever’s firing and the report did not go far enough.

The weeks following the firing and release of the report have seen prominent financial donors to the university and its athletic program joining current and former Golden Bears swimmers and their parents in calling for the immediate dismissal of Knowlton and Simon-O’Neill, who critics allege ignored or failed to effectively address repeated credible allegations of bullying and harassment against McKeever.

University administration and athletic department officials including Knowlton, Simon-O’Neill and Sandy Barbour, Cal’s athletic director from 2004 to 2014, received between 2010 and 2022 more than 30 complaints from Cal swimmers or their parents alleging bullying behavior by McKeever, according to interviews, university documents and emails obtained by SCNG.

Despite the repeated complaints, Cal has paid McKeever, 60, just under $3 million in total compensation since 2010 and has given her eight raises in her base pay between 2010 and 2019, according to her contract and other university financial records. McKeever’s annual base salary has increased by more than 77% since 2010.

The base salary raises and increased compensation for McKeever despite the steady stream of complaints, current and former swimmers and their parents said, show that Knowlton, Simon-O’Neill and other Cal administrators did not listen to them and that the university has prioritized athletic success over athlete well-being.

“This report comes out and it seems damning enough that they’re forced to fire her immediately but it seems just putting all the blame on Teri, blacking out significant portions of the report that seem to indicate that there’s a lot of information about the athletic department knowing,” said Abi Speers, a former Cal swimmer. “The framing or focus on this one bad apple without really interrogating or being open about what the administration might have known and why this was allowed to continue is disappointing

“From my experience as an athlete on the team Teri’s behavior and coaching methods felt like an open secret.”

Current and former Cal swimmers, their parents and donors vehemently dispute any notion that Simon-O’Neill was unaware of McKeever’s alleged bullying and other forms of abuse. Simon-O’Neill had an office near the pool and was regularly seen on the pool deck and traveled with the team, according to the McKeever report, university documents and interviews. She also attended meetings where swimmers complained about McKeever’s alleged bullying and harassment, according to university documents and interviews. A Cal swimmer said Knowlton in an exit interview asked them why issues with McKeever were not brought up sooner, according to the McKeever investigation report. The swimmer responded that they “believed that Simon-O’Neill had a conflict of interest based on her travel with the team.”

McKeever is a godmother to one of Simon-Neill’s children. Simon-O’Neill was hired by Cal in 2008 as director of Olympic sport operations. She was named associate athletic director in 2013 and after additional promotions was named to her current position, executive senior associate AD, chief of staff and senior women’s administrator in 2019. She was the direct supervisor of the women’s swimming program until it was removed from her last May, a day after the publication of an SCNG report in which 19 current and former Cal swimmers, six parents, and a former member of the Golden Bears men’s team portrayed McKeever as a bully who for decades has allegedly verbally and emotionally abused, swore at and threatened swimmers on an almost daily basis.

To date, 44 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, the only woman to serve as head coach of a U.S. Olympic swim team, 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.

“No, I don’t,” said Leann Toomey, a Cal All-American swimmer, when asked if she thought Simon-O’Neill was unaware of McKeever’s alleged bullying. “It’s (expletive). Are you kidding? The way everybody whispered behind the door (at the Haas Center, the school’s athletic office building). Like there would be people that would come up to me and say ‘Teri’s in a bad mood today.’ Everybody in that athletic department knew. If you were in the vicinity of Haas (Center) everybody knew what kind of mood that she was in. The whispers that would go down the hallway –’Teri’s in a bad mood,’ if they saw the swimmers they’d go be careful today, Like that’s (expletive) that she didn’t know.

“Some of the trainers, they would be like, ‘She’s not feeling’ it today.’ There’s no way, there’s no way she didn’t know.”

SCNG requested to interview both Knowlton and Simon-O’Neill. “Both politely declined,” Mogulof said.

The McKeever investigation, according to a report on it by Munger, Tolles & Olson attorneys, “focused solely on evaluating whether Coach McKeever’s conduct violated applicable policies without regard to what other coaches’ methods also violated policies,” according to the report.

The report also acknowledged that the law firm “was not retained to investigate the University’s knowledge of Coach McKeever’s conduct or its past responses to allegations of misconduct by Coach McKeever.”

Among a series of questions submitted to Cal this week by SCNG was, “Does the university have any plans on commissioning or ordering investigations into what Jim Knowlton, Jennifer Simon-O’Neill, Sandy Barbour or other university or athletic department officials and employees knew about McKeever’s abusive behavior, when they knew about it and what steps if any did they take to address it?”

“While the university is not going to comment on planning for any investigation into personnel matters, we understand that once underway investigations are likely to be confirmed by the subjects of the investigations or by witnesses who are in contact with the investigators,” the university said in its response.

“Here is what we can say at this point in time about matters related to the prior coaching of the swim team: In mid-February, after carefully reviewing and considering the investigative report concerning Coach McKeever, campus leadership directed that appropriate follow-on steps be taken. These steps include addressing matters that were outside of the scope of the investigation of Coach McKeever. These steps are currently being implemented.”

Knowlton and Simon-O’Neill have not been placed on leave, Mogulof said.

The university was also asked by SCNG,  “Did Jennifer Simon-O’Neill inform Jim Knowlton of her close friendship with Teri McKeever when he was hired? Did Simon-O’Neill inform him that McKeever was the godmother to Simon-O’Neill’s child?”

“The campus generally does not comment on personal matters involving specific individuals,” the university responded.