Parent leads effort to back embattled Charlottesville swim coach Gary Taylor

Two people involved in the Charlottesville swim community have told me in the past couple of days about an effort by a Cavalier Aquatics swim parent to persuade other swim parents to write letters of support for embattled coach Gary Taylor.

Taylor, hired to be the head coach at Cavalier Aquatics in 2021, is serving a two-year probation after admitting to emotional misconduct involving athletes at NC State, Auburn and Cavalier Aquatics following an investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport.

---

ICYMI

• Cav Aquatics, UVA Swimming coach Gary Taylor on probation after admitting to emotional abuse of athletes
• Piedmont Family YMCA addresses status of embattled swim coach Gary Taylor
• UVA Swimming, Piedmont Family YMCA, local media silent on Gary Taylor story
• UVA Swimming deleted, blocked NC State alum critical of Insta snap
• D1 swimmer: ‘It was hard for me to go to practice every day and face Gary Taylor’

---

The Piedmont Family YMCA, the parent organization of Cavalier Aquatics, has since tried to minimize the role that Taylor plays at the youth program, telling parents in an email that Taylor “has been primarily at UVA for the last year.”

Taylor was named the associate head coach of the UVA Swimming program last spring.

We broke the news of the March 17 Notice of Decision in the Taylor case handed down by the U.S. Center for SafeSport on June 9.

As it turns out, AFP wasn’t the first media organization contacted by concerned Cav Aquatics parents asking us to look into the Gary Taylor story.

We were told by one of the parents who asked us to review the case that an unnamed radio station had been contacted, as had the local print newspaper, The Daily Progress, but both were “dragging their feet.”

We would learn later that the influential swim-community website SwimSwam was also aware of the allegations against Taylor, but staff there didn’t feel comfortable moving forward with reporting.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the effort to get letters of support for Taylor, particularly, if the effort ultimately leads to a sympathetic local media report aimed at distracting from the reporting that we’ve done on Taylor’s suspension.