Teri McKeever, the UC Berkeley women’s swim coach, was placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday following accusations from more than two dozen people that she created a toxic environment by bullying student athletes.

UC Berkeley placed Teri McKeever, the renowned head coach of its women’s swim team, on paid administrative leave Wednesday following accusations from more than two dozen people of bullying behavior so toxic that several swimmers considered suicide over the years and others quit the team.

Parents and current and former student athletes reported witnessing or experiencing verbal, emotional, homophobic and racially charged attacks by McKeever, 60, whose storied career at Cal has spanned three decades and included several stints coaching the U.S. Olympic women’s swim team. The alleged abuse was first reported on Tuesday by the Orange County Register.

Reached by phone later that day, McKeever told The Chronicle, “I don’t think it’s in my best interest to comment.”

The university reacted on Wedneday.

“These allegations run counter to our core values and the expectations we have for every member of our department,” Cal Athletic Director Jim Knowlton said in a statement. “As the person entrusted with the well-being of more than 1,000 student-athletes, coaches and staff, I have no greater responsibility than ensuring we do the right things in the right way. We will follow all university policies and protocols for investigating and addressing these allegations.”

UC Berkeley has hired an outside firm to investigate the claims, said Dan Mogulof, a campus spokesperson. In a statement Tuesday, UC Berkeley called the accusations “serious and deeply disturbing” and said “we are now, as always, encouraging current and former students who may have been impacted to seek out support and assistance.”

The Orange County newspaper conducted comprehensive interviews with 19 current and former Cal swimmers, six parents and a former Cal men’s swimmer, who together painted a picture of a university that repeatedly ignored or dealt only mildly with numerous complaints about McKeever since at least 2014. The story avoided naming current students but identified several former students, including two of six who said they had considered killing themselves because of the coach.

The paper also reported that UC Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination was looking into an allegation by several swimmers that McKeever recently used a racial epithet and profanities about rap music, which the university would not confirm.

“I firmly believe that firing Teri is not an option, but a necessity,” former Cal swimmer Chenoa Devine of Oakland told The Chronicle. “The fact that she was not immediately placed on leave after the allegations surfaced — and even made it onto the pool deck the next morning — is ridiculous and an oversight on the part of the entire athletic department.

“No amount of discipline could be enough to make up for the decades of mistreatment and dozens of women she has abused.”

Devine, who was among the students interviewed by the Register, has not filed a formal complaint.

She was recruited to the Cal swim team in 2016, though the coaches at her club team in Davis warned her not to accept, having heard stories about McKeever, she told The Chronicle.

But the allure of UC Berkeley was too great. She accepted — then was shocked that even her coaches didn’t know how bad it was, she said.

A distance swimmer, Devine had a “quite fantastic” first year and qualified for the NCAA. In her sophomore year, she missed qualifying by a couple of seconds in the 16-minute race and was named second alternate.

That’s when McKeever “started verbally abusing me,” she said. The coach’s pattern was to single out one person to berate every day, and one of Devine’s friends on the team had already quit for that reason, she said. Now it seemed to be her turn.

“Not only was I isolated, she would scream profanities at me,” Devine recalled. “She questioned my motives, my reasons for being a swimmer. She said if I didn’t like it, I should leave.”

The former Cal swimmer said she had no idea why the coach was so angry with her and thought it was her own fault.

“I almost felt insane for feeling bad about it. I thought I must have done something wrong.” she said. But Devine felt unable to complain because she was on scholarship and, she said, McKeever had threatened to take it away.

The Register article reports that 14 women said they were targeted by McKeever, while 19 in all witnessed abuse. Some told the news outlet that LGBTQ swimmers were particular targets, and that the coach forced one athlete to come out in 2014 after she began dating a teammate.

The news outlet reported that five current swimmers and two others familiar with university complaints also said the campus had received “multiple complaints about McKeever’s alleged bullying of an African-American and a foreign swimmer on the 2021-22 roster.”

The article also included information about the National Suicide Prevention hotline (800-273-8255) because several former swimmers reported that they had considered suicide. Some accused McKeever of responding callously after learning of the plans.

Michael O’Hare, a professor in the Goldman School of Public Policy who for years has tracked campus relations with the athletics department and its culture, said the problem was allowed to fester for years, and no one stopped it.

“If I taught like this for one semester my colleagues and dean would be all over me like a cheap suit,” he said.

A key problem, he added, is expecting student athletes to complain about the very coaches on whom they depend for scholarships and future success in their field. “Intercollegiate athletics has to actively search out abusive and degrading coaching and show — not assert — that it is a firing offense.”

Meanwhile, McKeever was also cultivating Olympic medalists: Natalie Coughlin, Missy Franklin and Rachel Bootsma among them. And she brought prestige to the campus, serving in various Olympic and championship coaching jobs before becoming head coach of the U.S. women’s swim team in the 2012 Olympics.

While students athletes were reportedly quitting, blaming themselves or considering suicide because of their treatment on the team, UC Berkeley raised their coach’s pay.

A Chronicle review of public records shows that McKeever’s pay rose from $191,165 in 2014 to $250,500 in 2020, a 31% increase.

Nanette Asimov and Andy Picon (he/him) are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com, andy.picon@hearst.com. Twitter: @NanetteAsimov, @andpicon

Nanette covers California's public universities - the University of California and California State University - as well as community colleges and private universities. She's written about sexual misconduct at UC and Stanford, the precarious state of accreditation at City College of San Francisco, and what happens when the UC Berkeley student government discovers a gay rights opponent in its midst. She has exposed a private art college where students rack up massive levels of debt (one student's topped $400k), and covered audits peering into UC finances, education lawsuits and countless student protests. But writing about higher education also means getting a look at the brainy creations of students and faculty: Robotic suits that help paralyzed people walk. Online collections of folk songs going back hundreds of years. And innovations touching on everything from virtual reality to baseball. Nanette is also covering the COVID-19 pandemic and served as health editor during the first six months of the crisis, which quickly ended her brief tenure as interim investigations editor. Previously, Nanette covered K-12 education. Her stories led to changes in charter school laws, prompted a ban on Scientology in California public schools, and exposed cheating and censorship in testing. A past president of the Society of Professional Journalists' Northern California chapter, Nanette has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in sociology from Queens College. She speaks English and Spanish.

Andres Picon is a breaking news and general assignment reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle via the Hearst fellowship program. Previously, he covered education at the San Antonio Express-News, was a reporter and researcher at the Boston Globe and participated in the New York Times Student Journalism Institute. Andres has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Boston University. He is a native Spanish speaker and a devoted New York sports fan.