It has been made abundantly clear to me that UVA Athletics does not want to say anything, publicly, privately or otherwise, regarding the finding of misconduct against associate head swim coach Gary Taylor.
I reached out directly to Carla Williams, the athletics director, and Todd DeSorbo, the head swim coach, on Monday to “make a suggestion,” as I phrased it in an email to the two regarding how the Taylor matter should be handled.
“UVA Athletics, and UVA Swimming, need to show contrition in this case,” I wrote. “It would only make sense for Ms. Williams to issue a statement noting that UVA Athletics is aware of the issues with Gary Taylor, note that he has received some sort of training, retraining, counseling, whatever is the case to help him deal with the issues that led to the probation, and have Gary make some sort of statement to the same effect.
“Pretending that nothing happened and hoping the story will just go away is not the UVA Way.”
Appears I was wrong in thinking that.
ICYMI
To recap: Taylor, hired in May 2024 to his job in the UVA Swimming program, was placed on a two-year probation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport after admitting to emotional misconduct involving athletes that he had coached at NC State, Auburn and at Cavalier Aquatics, the competitive swim team at the Piedmont Family YMCA.
Taylor had worked as an assistant coach alongside DeSorbo at NC State before taking the head coach job at Auburn in 2018.
He was the head coach there for three years before what was described as a mutual parting of ways in the spring of 2021.
Four months later, he was hired as the head coach of the Cav Aquatics program, with the endorsement of DeSorbo.
The Piedmont Family YMCA has acknowledged that three formal complaints alleging emotional misconduct were lodged against Taylor in 2021, and the SafeSport finding included two additional complaints in 2022.
In Taylor’s first full year on the job at Cav Aquatics, half of the swimmers in the youth swim program had quit, with parents alleging to me – and backing up their allegations with copies of correspondence – that the staff, administration and board of directors at the YMCA routinely dismissed their complaints as lacking legitimacy.
I have documentation that Williams was made aware of the ongoing investigation by SafeSport into Taylor a day after he was hired to his job with UVA Swimming, and SafeSport policy would be to communicate its Notice of Decision, handed down on March 17, to his boss, who would be DeSorbo.
ICYMI
I tell you all of that to now share with you the statement that was provided to me by a UVA Athletics spokesperson last night as a response to my suggested course of action.
“We are committed to providing a safe and supportive environment where all of our student-athletes can thrive. Any form of abuse or harmful behavior is taken very seriously and won’t be tolerated. Per UVA policy, we are unable to comment on specific matters involving student-athletes or personnel.”
Notice a couple of things here.
One, there was no acknowledgement of any kind that this statement involves a coach in the employ of UVA Athletics who is serving a probation for emotional misconduct of athletes at two of his prior college jobs and a job where he was coaching minors.
I’ve noted that the investigation into the allegations against him was ongoing at the time he was hired.
Question: did UVA Athletics just not do due diligence in examining Taylor’s work history before hiring him?
If UVA Athletics was somehow not aware, were questions raised internally after Williams was informed of the ongoing SafeSport investigation a day after his hiring was made public?
I know to not even file a Freedom of Information Act request on this, because the UVA FOIA office would be able to cite the personnel exception to hide any internal communications here.
Either way – UVA Athletics didn’t do its due diligence during the hiring process, or it did, and decided that it was OK to hire a guy with a cloud of misconduct over his head – not a good look.
Two, “we are unable to comment on specific matters involving student-athletes or personnel.”
The University of Virginia community – current students, alums, fans and donors – should not accept this attempt to try to claim that UVA Athletics is unable to acknowledge admitted misconduct by a staff member because of an unspecified internal “policy.”
This approach means this story ends with UVA Athletics appearing to sweep the emotional abuse inflicted upon countless young swimmers under the rug, in the hope that the story will just go away, and we can all get back to the story of the UVA Swimming program being, how about those five straight national championships?
ICYMI
I went out of my way to give Williams and DeSorbo PR advice, which, of course, isn’t my job as a journalist, but seriously, nobody here is saying, fire the guy, but just, acknowledge that he was in the wrong, that he’s taking this whole experience as a wake-up call, that he’s working to be a better coach, a better mentor.
Leaving this story at, sorry, we can’t make amends, because policy, it casts a pall on UVA Swimming, for me, and I doubt that I’m alone in thinking that.
And to be honest, I don’t know that I’ll feel the same way about UVA Athletics going forward.
I’m thinking of the line that I’d offered to Williams and DeSorbo about “(p)retending that nothing happened and hoping the story will just go away is not the UVA Way.”
Now we know, it is.
Suggested new motto for the ol’ alma mater:
Quaeso nihil hic videndum disperge.
Translated from the Latin: please disperse, nothing to see here.
Video: UVA doesn’t want to say it’s sorry
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Chris Graham
