Pablo Torre

But she says that this was for the purpose of motivating them, that this was just his coaching style and it was all to make them better.

Lars' goal was to enforce a positive and healthy team culture, knowing that it would, in turn, bring athletic success.

His mindset about winning wasn't solely focused on swimming.

It wasn't just about being the top swimmers in the nation.

It was about being women of great character and students who excel in the classroom as well.

Riley didn't respond to my multiple requests for interviews, detailed questions about all this stuff.

Her lawyer didn't respond to my questions either.

And we're going to get to what the University of Kentucky had to say about this.

But this program at the time, if you go through just the public records here, it's not just the story of like a hard-ass coach who's running things and being demanding of his players.

It seems like there is a depth of the dysfunction that is also worth citing here.

Yeah, this is...

a stack of papers from one of the investigations into the University of Kentucky swim team at this time.

And it's a 2019 sexual harassment investigation, not into Coach Lars, but into his assistant coach, Chip Klein.

This investigation started after a bunch of swimmers had mentioned concerns about Klein in their exit interviews.

So the university started looking into it.

And after going through their process, by what they call a preponderance of the evidence, which is basically like more likely than not, this is true.

Klein had allegedly touched a swimmer's leg under her towel at a meet, forced that same swimmer to hug him before letting her enter the team room, made sexual comments about her and about other swimmers, things like comparing their bodies to meet, things like saying, quote, with a butt like that, she ought to be a good swimmer.

And so what is the consequence of what this investigation finds?

What does the school do in response?

Yeah, so while it's investigating the school, puts Klein on a suspension, that suspension stays in effect for the whole rest of the year, and then they decline to renew his contract at the end of the year.