Mecklenburg Swimming Association’s former national prep coach Jeremy Gregory was issued an interim suspension for “allegations of misconduct” by the U.S. Center for SafeSport on July 6th.
USA Swimming’s list of suspensions confirms the misconduct was a SafeSport violation.
“Coach Jeremy has been terminated effective immediately,” MSA head coach Peter Perers wrote in an email to the team. “Unfortunately there was some behavior that gave us absolutely no choice in the matter.”
Editor’s note: the underline emphasis was used by Perers.
The behavior was not specified, but Peter mentioned it involved a swimmer on the team in the email.
Gregory had five Olympic Trials qualifiers at the Aquatic Team of Mecklenburg (ATOM) and was named North Carolina Coach of the Year in 2018 and 2019.
He coached there for five years and served as the head senior coach in his last two years there before he was reportedly fired in February 2020.
Gregory then joined MSA in February 2020 as their senior coach and then their National prep coach.
MSA hired two senior coaches in late June: former SwimMAC head coach Sean Quinn and former LSU head coach Dave Geyer. Quinn was awarded North Carolina Coach of the Year in 2015.
SwimSwam reached out to Gregory via email on Monday, but he has not responded yet.
As a father, I can tell you that he was 100% abusive. My son gave up swimming because of him. He has no right to be on a pool deck, anywhere.
Whatever happened here? Jeremey Gregory is not on the banned list for usaswimming and is not in the safe sport database.
I am a current swimmer for MSA right now and right off the bat I knew that Jeremey was a coach to play favorites. I would ask him for advice and he would give me dry responses but when another swimmer who was part of his favorites asked him for advice he gave them a 2 minute speech on what to do. He does know how to coach from a technical standpoint but other than that his personal qualities were pretty bad.
that is the center of the issue. Jeremy was brought on the bring the fast swimmer from ATOM to MSA period full stop! why else would the owner Peter risk the obvious issues presented to him by the ATOM head coach. Peter is a numbers only team owner that will risk children’s well being for more swimmers in his “program” . Join MSA at you own risk because the owner doesn’t give a rip about your kid!
no its not. you missed the whole point.
there are other clubs in the area if unhappy. Try ATOM, they have a new coach everyone ran away from.
ATOM made me want to quit swim. Coach Stephanie does at least. She made me quit for sure. I went to MSA for two years and had coach Jermey (different one) and Jonathan (and matt, Brad, Ned etc). I would reccommend MSA- ATOM was good too- just that one coach that I didn’t click with. She yelled too much.
Saddest part in all of this is how much the kids bear the brunt of this. Not only any victims within this, but a whole swimming community now is lost in a flux, that is going to have inherited mistrust of coaches.
Actually the saddest part is those kids were put in a situation by MSA’s owner Peter Perers by hiring someone with questionable background, after being contacted by the former employer, then ignoring the warning signs, and putting that coach in charge of children! Having to put “special rules” in place for an employee show prior knowledge of th poor behavior therefore, negligence in hiring him. If my swimmer were abused by Jeremy while at MSA I would have an excellent lawsuit!
Stop comparing the ATOM and MSA situations. After the Charlotte Observer article, it’s clear that these are night and day different incidents. Shaynah’s comments on why he was fired from ATOM do not match rumors, and have no bearing on what happen at MSA. Move on
Two sides of the same coin?
@Mikey seems to think that there were “other sources” vouching for him. Who benefits form keeping a bad penny in circulation? I hope the new MSA hires at the North and South locations are up to snuff.
your kidding right?
SafeSport is such a joke. I was at a meet and at the timers meeting all the timers had to get rid of their phones before going behind the blocks. Because, I kid you not, they said it is a SafeSport policy to prevent taking pictures of girls behind the blocks. Are you kidding me? Have you ever heard of such a thing?! Just an absolutely ridiculous preventative measure for something that may have happened 1 time in history, and I doubt it even happened at all.
They’re just being safe. While some safe sport policies are a bit too far there are many that help protect the athletes
I guess Swimmingly won’t be used much in USA Swimming because it requires use of your phone as the watch …
This is a well known rule that I’m pretty sure came before safesport. It’s not a joke and there are a lot of creeps out there which is well documented in swimming.
You think that not allowing people to take pictures of swimmers in tight suits bent over on the blocks is a bad rule?
I think it’s an outstanding rule, and it’s one that actually applies to media as well. Our photographers are not allowed behind the blocks before the start of a race (that’s a fairly new rule), and I’m perfectly okay with that.
Nailed it
I think that it is something that shouldn’t even be talked about. Because I can’t fathom it happening. Obviously I have no problem with a rule against taking the pictures, but banning phones entirely? My point was that I think it is completely unnecessary because I can’t imagine something like this being an issue. Thank you for continuing the discussion, though.
Officials also want timers to focus on timing. I’ve seen plenty of incidents where a timer forgot to stop the clock because they were on their phone.
This may be the worst comment ever on this site.
You’ve apparently never been to a meet where a person with no ties to any swimmer in the meet was found taking pictures behind the blocks during starts. I’ve seen this three separate times at meets. One many years ago resulting in some dads roughing a guy up and another time resulting in the re arrest of a sex offender. Sorry you can’t text snd time though. But blame those pervs not USA Swimming Safesport.
I definitely disagree with Eisenheim’s statement which I already have stated but “worst comment ever” is a little much. Parents want to take pictures of their kids and I’ve seen lots of parents who aren’t familiar with the rules and not familiar with predatory behavior around swimming… they will get really bent out of shape over the no photos behind the block rule. so I understand at least a little where Eisenheim is coming from but I at least hope Eisenheim understands that this rule isn’t because it happened once, the rule came forth because of a lot of predatory behavior at swim meets
Really appreciate your insight on this, SSCOACH. I have to say I am shocked. It is truly sad that there are people out there doing what BooHoo Karen mentioned. I’ve never heard of anything like that happening and it’s hard to believe. I can’t find any reports of it happening online but I guess that’s not to say it hasn’t happened. If it has, that is the real problem here, not the rule about no phones.
Lots of safesport stuff isn’t googleable so it’s hard finding info. I’ve been a swimmer and coach for a long time and I can think of at least 4 or 5 separate incidents where a child predator was arrested and taken away from a swim meet. Sometimes they are taking photos, sometimes they just walk around. I’m not sure if there is an abundance of these people hanging out behind blocks taking photos, but it is a rule that makes sense considering the predatory behavior of these sick people.
I actually just learned of this rule from one of my kids at a meet this weekend. I support it 100%. It is not appropriate to take pictures behind the blocks when a swimmer is bent over, especially with how suits ride up, but even without that or with a full coverage suit when you really think about it why would it be okay to take a picture like this? This is a good example of why we need SafeSport. Something I never would have thought of but I assure you my own girls are glad no one is able to take a picture of them bent over in a swimsuit.
I definitely agree that taking pictures like that is beyond inappropriate. I would hope no one would question that fact. My initial point was that I didn’t think that this is even an issue to begin with. I’ve never heard of someone taking pictures like that behind the blocks. I was just saying I felt it was a bizarre rule that didn’t have much of a basis. But as some have pointed out above, apparently it actually is an issue, so it might not be so bizarre of a rule after all.
I knew when I saw this article last night I should make some popcorn
A Safe Sport violation is entertainment for you?
He’s the more innocent one here. CLT, QC704, and Edgar see swimmer abuse as an opportunity to dunk on a club they don’t like
How’s is it a dunk on a club I don’t like? I commented about how much a mess Mac is too.
My point is Jeremy is not the only one who should be getting looked at here.
It has become quite apparent Jeremeys behavior was widely known yet “the largest club in NC” decided to hire him. Now something happened again to another swimmer.
Yes Jeremy is the main focus, but as a former parent of a swimmer, it was the club owner who put Jeremy and the swimmer in this position. That shouldn’t be ignored
Swim drama. I almost forget about the actual complaint so thanks for the reminder
Please do not bring individual underage athlete names into this discussion — regardless of whether they decided to follow Jeremy to MSA or not. At the end of the day this forum should be a place to reflect on the lapses made by MSA, USA swimming, parents, and Jeremy himself.
It is unfair and unsafe to discuss underage athletes by name on this forum. I personally believe that they were victims regardless of which club team they swam at this past year.
I was a swimmer under him for years. My heart breaks for the athletes who were exposed to his behavior. He pushed the boundaries of emotional abuse long before he engaged in behavior that could be officially ruled as misconduct. This case is deeply sad and upsetting, but more so emblematic of problems deep within our sport, and athletics culture in general. We allow coaches to get away with emotional and verbal abuse in the name of producing results. We allow boundaries to be pushed until coaches believe they can get away with more blatantly illegal behavior, evidenced here. There are enablers on every level in this case, but I hope there is accountability. Given the recent revelation in USA… Read more »