Posted at 9:33 a.m., Friday, March 9, 2007
Stanford swim coach admits erasing athletes' records
Associated Press
STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford swim coach Skip Kenney faces discipline from the university for having the records of five former swimmers deleted from the team's annual media guide in what the longtime coach called "a serious mistake in judgment."Athletic director Bob Bowlsby said "appropriate corrective and punitive steps" would be taken against Kenney after next week's NCAA men's swimming championships in Minneapolis, where Stanford hopes to win its eighth national title under the coach's tenure.
"I find it unacceptable that anyone who earned such distinction (would) be selectively excluded from our publication, and we will immediately restore our records to accurately reflect the history of our men's swimming program," Bowlsby said in a statement.
Kenney had the names and best times of 2006 graduates Michael McLean, Peter Carothers, Tobias Oriwol and Rick Eddy, as well as a 1989 performance by Jason Plummer, selectively removed from this year's guide.
Kenney, whose teams have won the last 26 Pac-10 championships, did not say why the swimmers' records were expunged, but apologized in a brief statement. "To exclude these five student-athletes from our media guide was an error, and it will be corrected immediately," he said.
McLean said his times in the 500-, 200-, 1,650 and 1,000-yard freestyle, which ranked in the top 15 in Stanford history, were wiped out because he gave a 2005 summer internship priority over training. Requiring student athletes to train in the offseason violates NCAA regulations.
The deletions of his times "clearly were in response to my relationship with the coaching staff," McLean said. "It upset me because Stanford prides itself on its great athletic history, but it seemed like they pick and choose from the past."
In an interview with The Stanford Daily before the university issued his statement Thursday, Kenney told the student newspaper the omissions were an honest mistake and said they did not stem from poor relations with the former swimmers.
Reporters use team guides for definitive information on team statistics. Bowlsby said the man who produced the men's swimming guide, former media relations representative Bob Vasquez, was "equally responsible for a tremendous mistake in judgment," although "the intentional omissions" were made at Kenney's direction.
Bowlsby said the university would investigate McLean's claim that he was punished for not giving summer workouts top priority.
The NCAA does not have rules on the accuracy of media guide statistics because records are kept by athletic conferences, said NCAA spokesman Stacey Osburn.
