Section A · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, November 17, 1999
Senior Adrienne Turner swims the 200 meter butterfly at the seniors' last home meet in Robinson against Iowa State. Turner would not comment on her relationship with Kempf. Photo by Christina Neff /KANSAN
Exodus of swimmers follow in Kempf's wake
Continued from page 1A
Hard driving coach
Andrew Jacobs, nationally recognized sports psychologist and former Kansas swimming and diving team psychologist, said he respected Kempf and was unaware of anything unethical or inappropriate methods in his treatment of the swimmers.
"I have a lot of respect for Gary," said Jacobs, who worked with the team from 1981-1985. "He knows what he's doing. You're not going to be lasting this long if you don't know what you're doing."
Jacobs, who's worked with the Olympic cycling team, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals, held KU's swimmers accountable for not holding up under the stress of training.
"Gary is a hard working, hard driving coach," Jacobs said. "He expects the best, and kids today like to slide by on things as easily as they can without pushing themselves. Especially in swimming. Everybody has a point where they say, 'I can't do this anymore.' Next to triathlons, swimming is the hardest sport to train for and compete in because it involves more mental tenacity and toughness than any other sport."
Family sport
But swimmers' parents, who, like their kids, have been involved with swimming for more than 10 years, say Kempf crosses the line of what is acceptable coaching.
Lynn Painter, Tyler's father and club coach, said he first encouraged his son to adapt to the training but eventually came to see the training as abusive.
"At first, you think it's just growing pains and you can live through this," Lvnn Painter said. "But I
Tracking who has quit the swim team, and why, is not easy.
it," Conway said. "We have no way of knowing why they quit."
"If the school doesn't report that player who didn't come back, we really can't track
Ten former swimmers all cited Kempp's coaching as the central reason for their departure.
Laronica Conway, public information coordinator for the NCAA, said the NCAA could not track the number of Division I athletes who quit before their eligibility was complete.
didn't know the mental submission and the mental abuse was there. Tyler's a pretty tough kid. He does have his sensitive side, but he can pretty much take anything you dish out. I think Tyler stuck it out for as long as he possibly could. I know it's been pretty devastating to Tyler. But I think you live and learn, and he's moved on."
At least two coaches have moved on because they didn't want to deal with Kempf. Don Fearon, diving coach from 1989-1997, is now a computer systems support analyst for Cerner Corporation. Although Fearon said he left on good terms with Kempf, Fearon said he disliked working under Kempf because he controlled everything.
"He wants to run the show. He wants to be the one and only," said Fearon, who coached Michelle Rojohn, Kansas diver and 1996 NCAA champion. "We had a separate office because I couldn't stand being around him. It just reached that point. There were too many things I saw and heard, and I can't really speak for every other coach, but I know a lot of the coaches left for the same reason."
"He was always telling you that you were fat. Constantly it was: 'You need to lose weight.' Constantly. After weigh-in, he'd give a little speech about how we needed to watch what we eat."
Outside of Robinson Center, no one knew the stories about swimmers such as Patrick McLaughlin who woke up in a Watkins Memorial Health Center hospital bed or
If it were just a matter of losing a few swimmers and coaches, Kempf simply could be thought of as a coach with personality conflicts. But swimmers who have left also accuse Kempf of pushing them past their physical limits.
Amy Meyer
afternoon after practice. He never thought he would pass out in the pool during a workout. McLaughlin, 1991 graduate, transferred to Kansas after two years at New Mexico State University. He chose KU ahead of other Division I schools because he preferred the coach. He'd been starving himself for weeks
inch, 167 pounds, Kempf ridiculed him for being too heavy.
Kemp said he did not want to compare his version with another person's but confirmed
"Gary made a complete fool out of me in the team meeting before afternoon practice." McLaughlin, now an English teacher in Turku, Finland, wrote in a letter of protest to the chancellor. "He yelled at me for weighing in at my heaviest ever, 169.7 pounds. I'll never forget how he verbally assaulted me right there in front of my 60 teammates! Although I had seen this many times before already, it's a totally different story when it happens to you. I cannot begin to express the shame I felt. The pain. How I just wanted to run away and cry..."
that there were weight issues on the team during McLaughlin's era.
"I don't want to get caught trying to say people are right or wrong." Kempt said. "Some kids are going to try to get their weight down and in the early '90s, that was a real issue."
Kempf denied ever telling a swimmer to lose weight and said he had not weighed the athletes in a long time.
"It's always been a tough issue, but I've never told anybody they had to do this or they had to do that," Kemp said. "I haven't weighed in kids in years. I haven't touched a weight issue in a long time."
Jenny Fuller, junior and current team captain, confirmed that the team had not weighed in since last year. Even then, she said the weigh-ins were sporadic. She said Kempf had been making some changes in his coaching this year, including eliminating weigh-ins from the routine.
"A lot of people say he's never changed in 20 years," Fuller said. "But he's changing the program a bit this year. It's not as old fashioned. We're trying new stuff."
Although she said the team had not gotten on the scale for a year, a recent swimmer says there still are issues with weight and eating.
Amy Meyer, Tonganoxie junior and distance freestyleter who quit the program this fall, said Kempf still provoked some women to engage in unhealthy eating behaviors despite eliminating weigh-ins.
"He was always telling you that you were fat," said Meyer, who will swim at Drury College in the spring on a full-ride scholarship. "Constantly it was: 'You need to lose weight.' Constantly. After weigh-in, he'd give a little speech about how we needed to watch what we eat. And if you did lose weight, he'd say 'You look really good.' He's so sick. He's so degrading to women. We got no encouragement at all."
Fuller said she was not aware of any eating disorders on the current team.
Chele (Riffel) Troxel, 1985 graduate, underwent two years of therapy for her eating disorder that she said was Kempf-induced. She said he regularly approached her, told her she looked heavy and demanded that she lose weight, sometimes in public.
"He embarrassed me publicly at a swim meet at the University of Texas and told me that the other coaches thought that I looked like I was on steroids. He made me paranoid to walk the pool decks," Troxlel said. "At that meet in Texas, he blamed my weight for the reason I swam so terribly. It was because I was too heavy and that my weight was the reason. He humiliated me, yelling and making me cry in front of coaches and other teams. He told me that until I lost 10 pounds, I would not swim on another relay."
So she tried to lose the 10 pounds. She started with diuretics. When her body grew accustomed to them, her moved onto laxatives, six a day at one point. Finally, when she felt a chest pain running through to her arm, shortness of breath, heart palpitations and a heart rate of 220 in the middle of a training set, she knew she had gone too far.
"He puts his heart and soul into what he does, and I emphasize that I totally respect him. It's his life. It's what he believes in. But a lot of people can't handle it."
Andrew Jacobs Sports psychologist
"I was so scared," said Troxel, a licensed practical nurse pursuing a master's degree at Harper College in Palatine, Ill. "I thought I was going to have a heart attack."
Nevertheless, she said she thought her health was being disregarded by Kempf.
"Gary was not responsive to my health issues," she said. "Any problems you had, you were tougher if you endured them. He made fun of people with ice on their backs after practice or people with shoulder problems. He'd say they were weak and had no heart."
Swimming through the pain
Mike Bonner, who transferred to the swim team at California State University at Bakersfield after his junior year in 1998, said weight issues weren't the only health concerns arising from Kemm's coaching.
"The big thing is people who are hurt or
sick," Bonner said. "He'd try to get them to do stuff they shouldn't. I wish I could remember every little thing he did to people. He would try to manipulate people to swim injured because he needs people to swim fast and to win meets."
McLaughlin, who said his struggle with his weight nearly destroyed his career, also suffered a back problem. During a race at Southern Illinois University in 1990, he dove into the water and felt something snap in his back. While he thought he just pulled a muscle, doctors later confirmed that he had pinched a sciatic nerve. He underwent surgery to remove his fifth lumbar disc the summer before his senior year. McLaughlin said Kempf belittled him for easing into his training as the doctors had instructed.
“When the practices began, Gary let me bike (instead of run) but I sure got the sour looks and comments that made me feel subpar, just because I wasn't at 100 percent that first month or so.” McLaughlin wrote. “I felt scared for good reason. Gary's comments continued to just eat at me. I began to believe that I must be a bad athlete/person because no matter what I did, or how hard I tried, I just couldn't please Gary. He succeeded in making me feel little and unimportant — again. Weak. A loser.”
While some swimmers said they thought Kempf pushed them inappropriately through their injuries, Kempf said that, ultimately, recovery schedules were the swimmers' call but that it was his role as a coach to push his athletes.
"I've got to leave it up to the kids at the Division I competitive level," Kempf said. "You've got to push them, but it's not abusive. I'm not here to make the kids do something they can't do, but there's an expectation from coach to athlete just like there's expectation from an athlete to a coach. I
A Kansas swimmer competes at the meet against Iowa State. Former diving coach Don Fearon said that the team practiced more hours per week than was allowed by the NCAA. Photo by Christina Nelf/KANSAN