UVA Women’s Swimming begins its quest for a sixth consecutive national championship on Wednesday in Atlanta, the site of the 2026 D1 Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, which runs from March 18-21.
Today, March 17, is a day UVA Athletics would prefer that we not mention in terms of milestones.
A year ago today, the U.S. Center for SafeSport placed associate head swimming coach Gary Taylor on probation for two years after Taylor admitted to emotional misconduct while coaching swimmers from 2015 to 2022 at NC State, Auburn and Cavalier Aquatics, the latter being the competitive youth swim team at the Piedmont Family YMCA.
To this point, at the halfway mark of the two-year probation, UVA Athletics has not commented publicly on the findings involving Taylor, who was given a one-year contract extension on April 3, 2025, two weeks after his admission and acceptance of the terms of the probation from the U.S. Center for SafeSport.
What is the U.S. Center for SafeSport?
- The U.S. Center for SafeSport is an independent nonprofit created in 2017 by an Act of Congress that gave the body the authority to resolve abuse and misconduct reports for more than 11 million amateur athletes in the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Movement.
The news of the probation for Taylor has had a noticeable impact on recruiting – the women’s swimming program at UVA doesn’t have a single recruiting commitment in the Class of 2027, which is something that has been noticed and discussed widely in college swimming circles, given the prominence of UVA Women’s Swimming in the sport.
Head coach Todd DeSorbo and athletics director Carla Williams are clearly standing by Taylor in spite of the allegations, which were already the subject of investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport when UVA Athletics announced on May 28, 2024, that Taylor had been named associate head coach for the UVA Swimming program.
A Cavaliers Aquatics swim parent reached out to Carla Williams, the athletics director at UVA, the next day, on May 29, 2024, “to give you a heads up that you should start preparing for some blowback,” with mention of the ongoing investigation that the parent wrote “may result in a temporary or complete suspension from coaching in the sport.”
“I fear that Taylor’s reputation and behavior will become a blemish on UVA’s swimming successes,” the parent wrote in the email to Williams, which concluded: “You should start preparing a response as to why such a coach was hired and whether he will be retained, given his anticipated suspension.”
The parent reached out to Williams again on Sept. 30, 2024, with an update on the progress of the investigation, concluding with a line that “UVA should anticipate having one of its coaches sanctioned for misconduct – not a good look for the team or university.”
Williams replied to that email with a “(t)hanks for the update,” and a note that “with all related correspondence, we will forward your communication to the University’s Office of the General Counsel.”
So, the higher-ups at UVA knew what was going on with Taylor in terms of the SafeSport investigation well before the final findings were handed down in the case 10 months later, and they were also made aware of the probation before the decision was made to give Taylor his one-year contract extension.
That extension covers Taylor through April 30.
Will we be watching closely to see if UVA Athletics gives him another extension in the next few weeks?
Oh, yeah.
ICYMI: Gary Taylor placed on two-year probation
- Cav Aquatics, UVA Swimming coach Gary Taylor on probation after admitting to emotional abuse of athletes
- UVA extended contract of coach two weeks after he was put on probation
- I gave UVA Athletics a chance to make amends on the coach misconduct story: They don’t wanna
- UVA Swimming seeks out, gets, friendly media to counter fallout from misconduct story
- D1 swimmer: ‘It was hard for me to go to practice every day and face Gary Taylor’
- Mailbag: Swim parents upset with silence from UVA, YMCA on Gary Taylor story
- Former Y swimmer: Unable to get through practice ‘without planning how I’d end my life’
- UVA All-American David King: ‘The kids that quit at Cavalier Aquatics had horrible attitudes’
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Chris Graham
