University of Georgia Athletics
Bauerle & McKeever: Friends And Rivals
December 06, 2016 | Swimming & Diving
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
In the past six seasons, Georgia women's swimming and diving program has won three NCAA championships — three of the last four, actually. The other three in that span have been won by California.
All three times the Golden Bears took the title in that period (2011-12, 2015), the Lady Bulldogs placed second. California, meanwhile, was second behind Georgia in 2013 and placed third in 2014 and last season.
These two programs have had a stranglehold on the top of women's swimming, even if their respective head coaches — Georgia's Jack Bauerle and Cal's Teri McKeever — are much more likely to be hugging and laughing together than going for each other's throats.
"I love hearing him say how he's friends with the tennis people [in Athens] and goes to the Rotary Club, and I think what he's created here — I don't know exactly what it is but when I hear things, the image I have in my mind is really pretty special," McKeever said Saturday, during the UGA Fall Invitational at Gabrielsen Natatorium.
"I think it's part of why I like coming here, it's so different from Berkeley and I just think there's something so cool about a college town and the kind of success he's had and the difference he's made at this university, and it sounds like people really appreciate that."
It's quite a cross-country rivalry between Georgia and Cal, who were back at it against each other over the weekend. The super-competitive meet, with loads of Olympians and nationally competitive swimmers in the pool, was just the latest in the ongoing back and forth between Bauerle and McKeever — two of the best coaches in the business.
By the end of competition Sunday afternoon, McKeever's squad finished the meet in first place, with 914 points, while the Lady Dogs were second with 821.
Bauerle and McKeever and their programs are rivals, yes, both in the pool and while recruiting the top talent in the land. The coaches also are regular U.S. national team colleagues and, in large part due to the former, they've become really good friends.
"It's sort of a neat thing because I think we approach the sport from two different directions sometimes," Bauerle said. "I'm not sure our styles are the same, but we certainly respect what each other does.
"I just like being around her and I think she sees an awful lot besides the swimming part of things with her athletes and her normal day-to-day life. And I have a lot of respect for that."
Interviewed separately for this story, most of the things Bauerle said he liked about McKeever, she said the same about him.
"Jack's had an amazing run of student-athletes and the [NCAA] Woman of the Year awards and he's just had great women," McKeever said. "That's something I'm hoping someone would say about me, too. We like women that are exceptional athletes but are also exceptional people."
At the NCAA championships in March, Georgia upset favorite Stanford to capture the program's seventh title. The Bulldogs finished first with 414 points, Stanford scored 395 and Cal was third with 358. If McKeever's squad couldn't take the title, she was happy to see the Lady Dogs get it — especially since they edged out Cal's most bitter rival, Stanford, for first.
"Georgia just had a great meet," she said. "[Brittany MacLean and Hali Flickinger] took that team and said: 'this is what we're going to do, you better get on board.' You could just tell that.
"I just respected the way they showed up and were ready to go."
Bauerle has seven NCAA women's titles, three more than McKeever's four (the first coming in 2009). McKeever, who was an All-America swimmer at USC in the 1980s, was the first female coach to lead a swimming program to an NCAA team title. In 2012, she became the first woman to serve as head coach of the U.S. Olympic women's swim team.
While they'd coached and recruited against each other before, Bauerle and McKeever didn't really hit it off until 2003, when Bauerle was the head coach of the U.S. squad at the World Championships and McKeever was one of his assistants.
"I can remember sitting at this cafe after the meet and him telling jokes," McKeever said, laughing. If you know Bauerle, you know he can hold court for hours.
At the NCAAs and other big collegiate meets, opposing coaches often say hello to one another and not much more, like "two ships passing in the night," Bauerle said. But international meets, when coaches are on the same side and have hours and hours to spend together, on and off the deck, that's when bonds and relationships are forged.
"When you're on an international trip you spend more time together in one day than you do someone at the NCAA meet over five or six days," he said. "It's quality time."
Bauerle is an enormous sports fan, whether it is the Georgia teams he's rooted for since he was a Bulldog freshman in 1971, or it's his beloved Philadelphia teams. And McKeever can talk sports. Her father was an All-American football player at USC, her sisters were members of the U.S. national field hockey team and her husband, Jerry Romani, is a diehard San Francisco Giants fan.
"I really enjoy her, in part because she's not just a swimming nut, she's a sports nut," Bauerle said — a line that drew a big laugh from McKeever because it's such a Bauerle kind of line.
"We'd always have good conversations about the Phillies or when the Giants would beat the Phillies I'd text him," McKeever said. "It's fun stuff and the stuff you wouldn't know unless you spent all that time together."
Quality coaches and people, quality relationships and quality time.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.