Gary Taylor, the associate head coach with the UVA Swimming program, is on a year-to-year deal with UVA Athletics, and his letter of reappointment for the 2025-2026 academic sports year was offered to him on April 3, two weeks after Taylor was put on a two-year probation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport.
We obtained a copy of Taylor’s reappointment letter from the University of Virginia through a Freedom of Information Act request.
A Notice of Decision in the Taylor case, which saw Taylor admit to emotional misconduct of athletes at NC State, Auburn and Cavalier Aquatics, the competitive swim team at the Piedmont Family YMCA, was handed down by SafeSport on March 17.
We reported on the SafeSport Notice of Decision on June 9, and shortly after the AFP report was online, Taylor’s name was quietly removed from the Meet the Coaches page on the Cavalier Aquatics website, and the YMCA sent an email to swim parents to inform them that Taylor had spent most of his time in the previous year at his new job with UVA Swimming.
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
For what it’s worth, his bio on the UVA Swimming website still refers to Taylor as the head coach at Cavalier Aquatics.
Taylor was hired for the UVA Swimming staff in May 2024, reuniting with Todd DeSorbo, the head coach of UVA Swimming – DeSorbo and Taylor had worked together as assistant coaches at NC State, before DeSorbo took the UVA head coach job in 2017, and Taylor became the head coach at Auburn in 2018.
Taylor left the Auburn job in April 2021 – officially, it was a mutual parting of ways, though there were questions raised about his treatment of athletes at the time – and he landed at Cavalier Aquatics, a team that was formed from a merger between the Charlottesville YCMA Aquatics Club and the USA Swimming team at UVA, in September 2021.
By the next summer, parents of swimmers in the senior group coached by Taylor identified 31 swimmers out of 62 in that group who left the team during Taylor’s first year on the job, as complaints about his approach began to surface, first to the staff and administration at the YMCA, and eventually to investigators with SafeSport.
The YMCA, in an email to swim parents sent out last week, acknowledged that there were three complaints lodged with SafeSport in 2021 that were ultimately dismissed.
ICYMI
- Piedmont Family YMCA issues odd defense in latest email on Gary Taylor case
- Parent leads effort to back embattled Charlottesville swim coach Gary Taylor
Two complaints from Cav Aquatics swimmers in 2022 were included in the admission from Taylor that was dealt with in the March 17 Notice of Decision from SafeSport.
The one-year reappointment offered to Taylor on April 3, which he agreed to on April 7, is similar in construction to reappointment letters that we’ve seen for assistant coaches with other UVA Athletics programs.
The total compensation for Taylor in the 2025-2026 academic sports year comes to $88,300, with a list of performance bonuses that could add another $34,375 to that total.
Documents
We also obtained a copy of DeSorbo’s contract through a FOIA request, and the news there is, his deal, which runs through April 30, 2029, pays him $300,000 annually, with bonuses that could top out at $92,650.
The UVA Swimming program ran a $1.9 million operating deficit in the 2023-2024 academic sports year, according to information from the Sportico.com database, with total revenues for the men’s and women’s programs coming to $1,921,119, against total expenses at $3,832,994.
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Chris Graham
