USC Coach Jeremy Kipp Placed on Administrative Leave Following Investigation
Jeremy Kipp, the head women’s and men’s swimming coach at the University of Southern California since May 2020, has been placed on administrative leave. According to a report from the Orange County Register, the move was made after Kipp was under investigation for “multiple allegations of abuse… including that he threw a water bottle at a swimmer.”
USC confirmed the news to Swimming World late Saturday evening and also confirmed that associate head coach Lea Loveless Maurer, a two-time medalist at the 1992 Olympics and former head women’s coach at Stanford, will be the interim head coach. USC provided a brief statement on the matter but declined to share any specifics on the situation.
“The well-being of our student-athletes is our top priority. When a concern is raised about a coach or staff member, the university takes it seriously and looks into it.
“Coach Jeremy Kipp is on administrative leave. We are unable to provide further details because of the confidential nature of personnel matters.”
According to the Register, USC athletic director Mike Bohm informed the team about the move in a meeting Friday. Kipp will be able to appeal his decision, but it is unclear how this situation will develop in the coming weeks and months.
Kipp, hired in May 2020, had completed one full season at USC in which the Trojans finished fourth out of seven teams at the women’s Pac-12 championships and fifth out of five teams at the men’s meet. After losing a wave of elite swimmers to graduation, including NCAA champion Louise Hansson, neither program finished inside the top-20 at the NCAA championships.
At USC, Kipp replaced head coach Dave Salo, who led the Trojans for 14 years after Mark Schubert left to become the national team director of USA Swimming. Kipp had been an assistant under Salo until 2015 and then the head coach at Boise State for three seasons and the head coach at Northwestern for two years before returning to Los Angeles.
Read the original report from the Orange County Register here.