When Cal women’s swimming head coach Teri McKeever finally stopped berating Golden Bears distance swimmer Anna Kalandadze during a workout toward the end of the 2019-2020 season, she gave the freshman an ultimatum.

It was the second day in a row that Kalandadze had shown up at the pool on crutches after suffering a serious hip flexor injury.

Kalandadze was clearly struggling, according to three people at the session when McKeever told her to get out of the water.

“She pulled me out of practice and screamed at me in front of everyone,” Kalandadze said. “Teri asked me what the doctor had said. I told her he said to take it easy for a few days. Teri said there was no way I’m going to to Pac 12s if I don’t swim. She said I ‘had to suck it up or just leave.’

“It was so painful. I could barely walk. But I got back in the pool and swam.”

And swam and swam and swam for 7,000 agonizing meters, nearly 4 1/2 miles, feeling with each meter, each kick like she was being stabbed in her hip.

“I was crying into my goggles the whole time,” Kalandadze said, “but I wouldn’t let anyone see.”

McKeever targeted Kalandadze for almost daily bullying from the first month the freshman was on the Berkeley campus to the moment she left the team a week before the Pac 12 Championships, Kalandadze and nine Cal teammates as well as two parents of swimmers and a former member of the Golden Bears men’s team told the Southern California News Group.

“Anna was a target for Teri,” said Nick Hart, a former Cal diver.

McKeever bullied, body-shamed, swore at, held Kalandadze out of meets and trips and regularly kicked her out of practice, even as the swimmer qualified for NCAAs and trained and competed on an injury that reduced her to getting to class and around campus on crutches, Kalandadze and her teammates said.

“Teri was the reason I quit,” Kalandadze said. “She was awful to me.”

McKeever, the most successful female swim coach in the sport’s history, was placed on paid administrative leave by the university on Wednesday in response to an SCNG investigation that revealed at least six Cal women’s swimmers since 2018 had made plans to kill themselves or obsessed about suicide for weeks or months because of what they describe as McKeever’s bullying.

Kalandadze is one of 28 current or former Cal swimmers who have have told the SCNG that McKeever was a bully who for decades has allegedly verbally and emotionally abused, swore at and threatened swimmers on an almost daily basis. McKeever, 60, also reportedly pressured athletes to compete or train while injured or dealing with chronic illnesses or eating disorders.

“Teri destroyed Anna and almost made her quit swimming after 15 years of swimming and dreaming about Olympics,” said Olga Zelenaia, Kalandadze’s mother.

McKeever grew up in Southern California and was an All-American swimmer at USC before getting into coaching. She was the 2012 U.S. Olympic women’s team head coach and has guided the Golden Bears to four NCAA team titles. She is the subject of at least three ongoing investigations. An external investigation by a Los Angeles-based law firm commissioned by the UC Berkeley, and a U.S. Center for SafeSport investigation into McKeever were launched this week following the SCNG report.

The university’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination opened a formal investigation earlier this month into allegations that McKeever recently used a racial epithet and profanities in disparaging rap music, according to five swimmers familiar with the conversation and an email to Cal detailing the incident. The investigation into the incident will initially focus on potential racial discrimination but could be expanded to also consider possible discrimination based on sexual orientation and national origin, according to confidential university documents obtained by SCNG.

“Accountability is Teri’s favorite word,” Kalandadze said. “She wants everyone to be accountable. Where is the accountability for Teri?”

McKeever has declined SCNG’s requests for comment.

Kalandadze, now an All-Ivy League swimmer and NCAA qualifier for Penn, also initially did not respond to multiple voice mails left on her cell phone by SCNG. Finally one day she answered a reporter’s call after just one ring.

“Are you really doing a story on Teri?” Kalandadze asked the reporter skeptically.

The reporter assured her he was. Kalandadze apologized and laughed.

“I thought you were just another reporter calling about Lia,” she continued, referring to Penn teammate Lia Thomas who recently dominated global headlines in becoming the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title.

“I’d be more than happy to talk about Teri.”

It is, however, a painful journey. She is at peace with herself and in love again with a sport that has been an obsession since childhood. But as Kalandadze recounted her time in Berkeley a sense of fear, frustration, hurt and anger can still be heard in her voice at times.

“Honestly, I love it now,” Kalandadze said of swimming. “This year has been great. I hated it so much because what I went through with Teri. For a year and a half I barely swam. I had to force myself to go to practice. I had PTSD from her. The slightest thing would send me into a mental downward spiral.

“I was terrified of her. I honestly didn’t know how far she would go.”

For many of the nation’s top female high school swimmers Cal was the program: winners of a string of national titles, and guided by a coach who seemed to produce NCAA champions and Olympic medalists by the dozen.

“Swimming for Cal and being coached by Teri was her dream for many years,” Zelenaia said.

But Kalandadze truly fell in love with Cal on a recruiting trip to the Berkeley campus. She grew up in Ardmore, Pa., a suburb on Philadelphia’ s Main Line, and attended Lower Merion High School, alma mater of Kobe Bryant.

“I chose Cal because it’s a great school and I wanted to prove that I could swim for one of the top three programs in the country,” she said. “Teri and the team seemed so welcoming. Teri talked about empowering women. It was going to make you stronger for the rest of the life.”

But there was no talk of empowerment once Kalandadze arrived in Berkeley for her freshman year.

“The first week was fine,” she recalled. “Then all of a sudden Teri decided she didn’t like me. “It started out with small comments about my body. Then she kept me off travel squads even though I was one of the best swimmers on the team.”

The comments were particularly upsetting for Zelenaia, who said she told McKeever during a meeting in the recruiting process that Kalandadze had a “documented disability” for “severe social anxiety,” which she was taking medication for.

Yet McKeever, Kalandadze said, kept kicking her out of practice for no apparent reason.

“One time I asked her why she kicked me out,” Kalandadze said. “(McKeever) said she kicked me out for squinting. I was squinting because the sun was in my eyes.”

Then there was the swearing.

“Teri called me a piece of (expletive) at almost every practice. Teri swore at me at least three times a week,” Kalandadze said. “I needed to stop bitching. I had a (expletive) attitude. I was a piece of (expletive).”

Kalandadze ripped open her foot during an ocean swim on a training trip to Hawaii.

“The trainer bandaged my foot,” Kalandadze said. “Teri tried to force me to take them off.”

McKeever seemed especially focused on Kalandadze’s weight, the swimmer said.

“She talked about my weight a lot,” Kalandadze said. “I’m not a skinny girl but I was swimming fast.”

McKeever pulled Kalandadze out the pool in the middle of practice in front of the rest of the team to lecture her about her weight, the swimmer and her teammates said.

“She pulled me out of a (training) set and asked me, ‘How have you been eating? What are you eating plans?’” Kalandadze said.

The swimmer told McKeever she was on the school’s dining plan.

“Well you’re not swimming fast enough. You need to lose some weight,” Kalandadze recalled McKeever telling her. “Basically she was telling me I was fat. I cried in my dorm room that night.”

Even when Kalandadze raced fast there was no joy.

At the Minnesota Invitational in December 2019, Kalandadze posted an NCAA qualifying time in the 1,650 yard freestyle that was one of the Top 20 times in the nation and more than a minute faster than her previous season’s best.

“I had just qualified for NCAAs,” Kalandadze said. “And I get out of the pool excited and Teri looked at me and said, ‘I’m really surprised you swam fast because you don’t work hard enough.’ And she said that right in front of the coaches and swimmers from other teams.

“If you talk back, she starts screaming at you so I just said, ‘I understand.’

“I was ecstatic. I had just dropped (a bunch of) seconds in the mile and then I hear that.”

Zelenaia could tell the toll McKeever’s alleged bullying was taking on her daughter.

“Anna was talking and sobbing with me on the phone after every incident,” Zelenaia said in an email. “We attempted to modify Anna’s facial expression, her overall appearance (she does appear withdrawn when she is exhausted or intimidated) multiple times to mitigate coach anger. I never blame other people first. We tried to find the reason in Anna. Nothing helped.”

Kalandadze wasn’t the only Cal swimmer struggling with McKeever’s alleged bullying at the time, according to multiple Golden Bears athletes and parents.

Like Kalandadze, Danielle Carter, another Cal freshman, said she was bullied on an almost daily basis since arriving in Berkeley.

“Teri made me feel so little,” Carter said, “and I didn’t want to feel like that anymore.”

Late in the semester Carter went into her dorm bathroom with plans to slit her wrist.

“It got to the point where I literally couldn’t take it anymore from Teri,” Carter said. “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.’”

Carter said she had second thoughts at the last moment and texted a teammate.

Later Carter gave Kalandadze a bag to dispose of, telling her not to open it. Kalandadze took the bag and in fact opened it, finding a number of knives.

“I remember that was a day or two after my attempt when I was told to throw away or give away any knifes or anything that I could harm myself with,” Carter said.

Since the fall, Kalandadze had requested meetings with McKeever to discuss the coach’s displeasure with her. These requests have been confirmed by Zelenaia, Kalandadze’s teammates and emails.

“I requested meetings one on one with Teri and she told me she didn’t want to speak to me, didn’t want to meet me,” Kalandadze said. “I had no idea why I was being targeted. She would just say talk to your captains.

But Kalandadze was on what Cal swimmers refer to as “Teri’s (expletive) list.” Swimmers on the list were largely avoided by their teammates, who feared being seen by McKeever as supportive or even being viewed speaking with a swimmer on the list would land them on the list as well.

“I tried to talk to the older swimmers and was shunned,” Kalandadze said. “The ones who did talk to me said stick it out. It would get better next year.”

But by February, Kalandadze realized she couldn’t take another year in Berkeley. A week before the Pac 12 meet, she quit the team.

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said. “And I didn’t want to help her by scoring points at Pac 12s.”

Zelenaia emailed McKeever, asking to speak to the coach over the phone.

“Anna believes that she did everything in her power to meet your expectations and resolve the situation which apparently had a negative impact on her wellbeing for a while,” Zelenaia wrote in a February 19, 2020 email. “I should have gotten involved earlier but she thought she can do it on her own and did not let me contact you. She is a person with disabilities, and as a mother, I was concerned but still wanted her to try.

“Unfortunately, at this point Anna is not comfortable with direct communication and cannot come to your office.

“I will be calling in at 8:30 but if Anna’s absence is a problem, please feel to reject the call.

“All I need is to hear from you what caused this disaster.

McKeever responded.

“Sorry but I will not speak with a parent without the student present,” McKeever wrote. “We purposely scheduled the call at 8:30 with a stop at 9:00 so Anna could be present. That’s also why (assistant coach) Dani (Korman) will be present.

“If she feels she can’t attend, then I’m sorry I not comfortable speaking with you.

“We will be in my office at 8:30 should Anna change her mind.”

Kalandadze attended the meeting.

McKeever was civil during the telephone conversation, Kalandadze said. But the coach’s tone shifted after she hung up the phone.

“I was about to leave and her last words to me were, ‘You should be ashamed.’” Kalandadze said. “She said, ‘You (expletive) on me. You (expletive) on the team. You (expletive) on your family.’ And your Mom would be embarrassed about what you’ve done.’”

McKeever did not elaborate on what Kalandadze had “done,” the swimmer said.

Kalandadze moved back to Philadelphia and tried to move on with her life. But memories of McKeever’s alleged bullying continued to hound her for almost two years, she said.

Kalandadze, however, wouldn’t be the only person unable to let go of her time in Berkeley, Cal swimmers said.

For months and months, McKeever continued to talk about Kalandadze, swimmers said.

“Anna would live rent free in Teri’s mind,” a Cal swimmer said laughing. “Teri would still bring her up a year later after she left.”

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