calumnus said:wifeisafurd said:I appreciate your passion here, but you appear in this line of posts to be misstating history.calumnus said:wifeisafurd said:They are really accused of different types of behavior, though we have lumped both coaches together as old school type coaches. For the most part you could actually print on this forum what McKeever was saying. Not so with Lou.calumnus said:wifeisafurd said:calumnus said:wifeisafurd said:It seems to me that the defense for Cal is not that they did not respond to McKeever's berating tactics - they apparently did have negative employee reviews for that. But that is not what caused the termination.Oski87 said:
It seems to me that the defense for Cal is not that they did not respond to McKeever's berating tactics - they apparently did have negative employee reviews for that. But that is not what caused the termination. The termination was caused by using racist language and sexual orientation shaming. Those are clearly against the rules for coaches and that is what she was fired for. I think in Knowltons remarks, he made that perfectly clear - basically saying that NOW we are going to take a look at how we coach with regard to actual coaching techniques and using military-style tactics for college athletes
So she can say that Knowlton knew about her coaching techniques -- but he can say he never knew she was a homophobe and racist, and that is why she was fired. And they did ask her to improve the "culture on the team" to lessen the overt crazy.
Am I reading that wrong?
This is a narrative for which there is no evidence, not to mention is very dangerous. There is findings in the Report that the berating tactics constituted bullying and broke University anti-bullying policy, policy regarding body shaming , etc., which policies are set forth in the Report.
There is no evidence what was in her personnel reports. Worse, assuming you somehow have knowledge that the berating tactics were in her personal report, and you chose to publicly share that, you just admitted that senior University employees knew and supposedly documented serous violations of policy, and took no action, suggesting that this conduct was ratified by the employer. Exactly the arguments that McKeever is making in her defense provided in the Report. There is no evidence one way or the other
Moreover, the Report concluded: "MTO determined that a preponderance of the evidence, including the accounts of more than 40 swimmers, supported the conclusion that Coach McKeever yelled personal insults and epithets at certain swimmers and, with those certain swimmers, used humiliating and belittling language that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to the University's legitimate business interests.... creating a hostile environment ... thereby violating University policy."
The termination was caused by using racist language and sexual orientation shaming. Those are clearly against the rules for coaches and that is what she was fired for. I think in Knowltons remarks, he made that perfectly clear - basically saying that NOW we are going to take a look at how we coach with regard to actual coaching techniques and using military-style tactics for college athletes
So she can say that Knowlton knew about her coaching techniques -- but he can say he never knew she was a homophobe and racist, and that is why she was fired. And they did ask her to improve the "culture on the team" to lessen the overt crazy.
Jk's letter does not detail reasons for termination, other than he " believe this is in the best interests of our student athletes, our swimming program, and Cal Athletics as a whole."
It is interesting to note that he then mentions that "[T] he report details numerous violations of university policies that prohibit race, national origin, and disability discrimination. The report also details verbally abusive conduct that is antithetical to our most important values. I was disturbed by what I learned in the course of reading through the report's 482 pages that substantiate far too many allegations of unacceptable behavior."
No where does JK say that the Cal administrators didn't know about "numerous violations of university policies that prohibit race, national origin, and disability discrimination." Rather he only learned of "far too many allegations of unacceptable behavior." I'm not sure how you possibly extrapolate that wording to in any way mean "So she can say that Knowlton knew about her coaching techniques -- but he can say he never knew she was a homophobe and racist, and that is why she was fired." He never says anything like that. If anything, his languee suggests the opposite about his knowledge, and says absolutely nothing regarding the reasons for her termination.
There is no evidence in the Report that McKeever was asked to "improve the culture on the team."
What is really extraordinary, that you could draw so many conclusions when the entire section titled "Prior Complaints to the University" is redacted along with two of the seven main allegations investigated.
One of the more disturbing parts is that one of McKeever's primary defenses is that administrators were aware of her (1) coaching style and (2) absolved her of wrongdoing after past complaints (almost quoting verbatim), which sounds on the surface to mean in fact administrators: (1) knew about her propensity for bullying coaching techniques and (2) there are individual action of wrongdoing conduct which could very well have been obvious violations of policy such as racist language (I mention this because McKeever admitted using the N word in the discussions about rap music and there clearly were complaints made about her language, not that I or anyone else outside the primary player at Cal, know what was known by administrators, in personnel reports, or was said to McKeever). Indeed, McKeever noted:"that when she has disciplined a female athlete in the past few years, she could not do anything right in the eyes of the team, and the athlete would tell their parents, who in turn would tell the athletic director."
The last kick in Mckeever's defense is about the distinctions made between men's and women's coaches, especially those in more physical sports, and is an interesting read complete with comments from football players who perhaps thought they were being macho. But there a lot of coaches, swimmers, staff people and the like who say what McKeever did would have flown if she was a male coach or was coaching males. One of the defensive allegations raised was that there are no clearly established coaching standards, particularly for elite division one athletics, and it is the responsibility of the university and its investigators to speak to and observe other coaches to develop an objective coaching standard. This probably explains why JK is now looking at standards among all sports. I thought the gender discrimination argument was total BS, until I read the discussion. Before buying into different narratives, I suggest reading McKeveer's defenses. That said, Munger Tolles probably did Cal no favors by saying double standards may exist, but even if male coaches would not get into trouble, or male athletes would not complain, and McKeever may face a double standard, "that would not allow us to conclude that a coach who engaged in such conduct with female athletes did not violate University policy" (which suggests there is a different policy for coaching men and women). Again, I can see why JK wants to to look at a universal set of rules of conduct when looking to the future.
It is an interesting coincidence that Lou Campanelli passed away this past week.
It was 30 years ago this week (Feb. 8, 1993) that Campanelli was fired for abusive language towards the players, their complaints to the AD (Kidd saying the stress was making him sick) with Campanelli then suing the university, the AD and the chancellor but losing (repeatedly) in court.
Because of what was allowed 30 years ago when Bobby Knight types could coach with impunity, Lou was allowed to go to an extreme that the adults had to step in. I have talked with players for Lou, and he did things that would never fly today, and make MeKeever look like a light weight. Seven scholarship players were threatening to leave, and the entire team demanded he be fired, not just a few aggrieved swimmers. It was more than just language. There were a lot of pretty tough guys that played for Lou (indeed one is a long time prison guard) and even they think Lou took it way too far - and the courts agreed.
The other thing is the court records showed Lou conceded he "engaged in temper tantrums directed at his players which included verbally abusive and profane remarks of a personal nature, to the extent that seven members of the team wanted to transfer unless he was fired. Through these concessions, Campanelli has admitted the essential accuracy [of Cal's case]." Try admitting that as a coach these days. McKeever has not. While she may have some points that women coaches are subject to different standards and there seems to be a double standard in sheltering female athletes more, that doesn't excuse what are clear violations of University policy (just one guy's opinion). If litigators like Bearister think she likely would lose at trial, I'm deferential to their opinion.
In some ways, what McKeever did, encouraging the young women to share intimate details of their lives, then singling out a scapegoat for bullying and abuse every year, using that shared information against her, and encouraging teammates to join in that abuse, or face becoming the new victim, Is more evil. At least Kidd et al had each other and could support each other and go to the AD together.
Thankfully I have never seen the N-word here.
Regardless of language, I think the psychological severity of McKeever's abuse is far greater and crueler, because it was directed and personal with the victim intentionally isolated from the others. Those tactics are not used to motivate the victim, they are used to motivate the rest, through the fear of taking the victims place, so there is nothing the victim can do to escape, working harder won't work, starving themselves, groveling, fighting back, nothing,
The N word is an evolving unacceptable word, which probably escaped from players' and coach's mouths every five minutes when Lou was coaching, and often by black players to other black players. I recall Tedford being a trail blazer and saying that stuff was unacceptable, and actually having to say and reinforce that with every new frosh class and transfer players. But there is nothing when Lou was ranting, including your race, national origin, religion, your mother's or girl friend's sex life, suggesting you gender sexual preferences or anything else that was not off limits. Moreover, isolating players against the team and any other tricks used by coaches such as McKeever was fair game for Lou (and by other coaches at the time). Whatever it took to motivate and win. But what got Lou fired was his temper, which could be very personal, could be directed at having the team get angry at you and anything else. There simply were no boundaries. What you don't get is he was not fired because he said or did things that today would violate standards, but because he had a short fuse and was was unrelenting. Today, Lou would have what we call serious anger management issues. The point being things have changed, and the University has rules that you as a coach agree to follow. There was no such things in Lou's time, so the University fired him only after the team rebelled and the AD and others followed Lou around and saw how over the top his anger became constantly. If you think Lou didn't motivate by fear, didn't isolate players, or the rest of conclusions in your post, based on what I hear from players who played for Lou, you don't have a clue what your talking about. I'm happy to share with you the players I know and have talked to on a PM. I'm sure they would also say they had stress reactions dealing with Lou.
The other point I would make is that times have changed, and the University actually had rules which it asks coaches to follow. There is a section in the Report that discussed generational changes, and that athletes may be less able to handle criticism or even harsh realities, and that parents are more likely to interfere (which at some level may be good, and at some this maybe be having to deal with helicopter parents). So yes, maybe student athletes today overreact to things compared to those in Lou's time. That doesn't matter, as the Report points out, McKeever was found to not to comply with today's requirements set by the University. Indeed, if you look the Report, as what happened to McKeever, female swimmers in Lou's time at USC and other schools were weighed in front to the football team, and then suspended if they weighted too much. Today that likely would lead to an onslaught of adverse media attention and all sorts of repercussions.
As for suicide and certain other player reactions, you might well read the Report more carefully. For example, read materials submitted by McKeever on swimmers with pre-existing conditions and the skepticism expressed by many witnesses that McKeever's training or actions was responsible for any suicide attempt. I think you are better off not concluding things based on what you read in a newspaper article or other posts. Again, the point is the Report found McKeever violated University rules on many different occasions.
Another reason for reading the entire Report is it drops certain little nuggets about administrator actions, something that you have commented on before. For example, there is a submittal by McKeever from the Assoc. AD regarding the results of swimmer exit interviews (hint: McKeever isn't being portrayed in the same way as in the Report).
Yeah, my comment was not a legal one. It is more a moral and ethical one. Agree that Campanelli was more anger issues. What McKeever did was more calculated which is why I called it more "evil."
Similarly context is important. You cannot remotely compare the use of the N-word by an African American and its use by a White person (or the use of the F word or other similar terms by someone who is not LBGTQ). The later was never acceptable. Never. It use by people who are part of those groups is not for others to decide.
I think my other point in bringing up Campanelli, which you confirmed, is that in the past 30 years Cal HAS added written coaching standards, which makes Knowlton's public statement that "now" we will add them more than a bit disingenuous.
One final thought, I still can't believe that after he was fired and lost a couple of bitter lawsuits against us, the PAC-12 put Campanelli in charge of officiating.
Photo by calbears.com
Cal Parts Ways With Teri McKeever
Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton announced Tuesday that Cal has parted ways with longtime women's swimming & diving coach Teri McKeever.
In a letter to the team and Cal athletic department staff, Knowlton wrote that "after carefully reviewing an extensive investigative report that was recently completed by an independent law firm, I strongly believe this is in the best interests of our student-athletes, our swimming program and Cal Athletics as a whole."
Knowlton also wrote that "the report details numerous violations of university policies that prohibit race, national origin and disability discrimination. The report also details verbally abusive conduct that is antithetical to our most important values."
Knowlton said Dave Durden will continue as Cal's Acting Director of Swimming & Diving, and that the department will move as quickly as possible to decide permanent leadership for the program.
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