Cal Poly swimming & diving head coach Phil Yoshida has been placed on an indefinite leave of absence by the university, the OC Register’s Scott Reid reported on Monday. The school is investigating ‘multiple allegations’ that he verbally and emotionally abused athletes and assistant coaches, threatened them, and retaliated.
Two parents with athletes on the team confirmed the report to SwimSwam.
On August 26, Yoshida was notified by the human resource officials that he was being placed on leave. Athletic department employees and athletes were informed of the decision on September 6.
Yoshida served as an assistant coach at Cal Poly for 19 years under two head coaches before being named interim head coach on April 1, 2020, and the full-time head coach a year later.
Yoshida also swam at Cal Poly for two seasons from 1999 through 2001, and from 2001 through 2007 worked in the school’s fruit science department.
The Cal Poly women finished 9th out of 10 teams at the MPSF Championships last season, while the Cal Poly men were 7th out of 8 teams.
Cal Poly is scheduled to kick off the season with its annual Queen and King of the Pool pentathlon meet against Cal on Friday, September 22. Only the first two meets of the Mustangs’ schedule for this year have been released.
The school is still 10 days away from the first classes of its fall term.
The program has a new head diving coach this season, Laurel Abernethy.
If the rumbles through the swim team are correct, it would appear that despite blatant misconduct, bullying, harassment and incompetence on Phil’s behalf, the Don Oberhelman is planning on bringing him back in April. Look at the statistics during Phil’s time as head coach – lost 40 swimmers/divers in two years. 1 season with Tom back – the team had zero swimmers leave. Cal Poly’s HR and Administration conducted a proper investigation but when the report was turned in, the person in HR that completed the report resigned or perhaps was asked to leave. A new sham investigation and cover up took place in which the administration claimed NO misconduct was noted. This is after more than 85% of the… Read more »
The athletic director is trying to stick it to the team now! He just hired back Tom Millich, who is quite possibly the ONE person worse than Phil! He taught Phil all he knows. This is completely ridiculous and setting this program up for failure. No plans to hire a new coach until summer 2024! This athletic director needs to be FIRED!
You’re all gonna love this. The AD, Don, just brought back the old coach (who taught Phil everything he knows) to be the interim! Tom Milich. Another old boy in that network.
This is another huge red flag that directly relates to Don Oberhelman’s inability to manage this growing fiasco!
Better days are ahead for the Cal Poly Program.
A change was badly needed and hope they get in some good energy to coach the team going forward.
Unfortunately the Athletic Director, Don, is still supporting Yoshida and and has no plans to hire an interim coach. He is not to be trusted and has zero interest in keeping the men’s swimming program at Cal Poly sadly. He needs to be next for investigation for all years of ignoring the athletes pleas for help with the situation. Swept under the rug every time.
So many athletes had to take “mental health” breaks from swim the past 3 years and instead the coach just cut them from the… Read more »
I couldn’t agree more…Don seems to feel bullet proof and that’s a dangerous thing. Why Cal Poly hasn’t stepped in to stop Don as well is another mystery.
Surprised it took this long. A few years earlier and you could have written this same article about the old coach Tom Milich. This has been an issue for a long time.
In my opinion, responsibility really lies with Dan, who has ignored complaints for years and years. Good old boys club. An effective AD would have cleaned this up a before it started.
And now Tom is back as interim. Absolutely terrible. They’re really trying hard to destroy the program.
The guy drove a very talented swimmer from our club out of the sport after two seasons with him.
This has been a long time coming in our area!!!!
The sad part is that Phil’s still being enabled to remotely coach through Cal Poly’s Athletic Director, Don Oberhelman.
It’s just crazy. My oldest would have loved to have swam for Poly, but basically was discriminated against for not being a part of his club team. He missed out on many great swimmers from our area for years. It’s a shame. He’s gotten away with way too much for many years.
and held a grudge on local swimmers for it too sadly.
Check the roster history…he hasn’t brought in a San Luis Obispo swimmer due to his grudge from being fired from his own club team.
Unfortunately it’s been going on long before his firing from the club team. Many, many years…
As someone who swam for Phil in his early days as an assistant, I don’t think I ever saw behavior that rose to the level that was abusive but it’s borderline. I’m not surprised to see this and neither are my teammates I talked about this article with.
My message to the current team members is to stay strong. Hopefully the athletic department will find you a great new coach. Ride high you Mustangs!!
The AD and Athletic Department do NOT have the best interest in the team, especially the men’s team. AD Don threatened the team that if they didn’t like how things were done with Phil he “would be happy to cut the men’s team and only have a women’s team”. So therefore none felt safe coming forward for a long time fear of losing their program.
Nope. Athletic Dept is trying to punish the team by bringing Tom Millich back as interim! WTH???