Then-Louisiana State University Tigers head coach Les Miles looks on during a game in Baton Rouge, La. Recently, the NCAA filed a Notice of Allegations against LSU that said from 2012 to 2020 the school lacked institutional control over its basketball and football programs the same time frame in which Lewis alleges she reported several sexual harassment complaints that were not investigated by the school. College softball expert roundtable: Who has the most to prove and who can stop Oklahoma? They kept saying there was nothing they could do.. When we become aware of accusations, we have an obligation to immediately report every allegation to the Universitys Title IX office so that appropriate due process can be implemented.. The woman told police that Davis punched her hard enough to fracture one of her ribs in one instance, began to strangle her in another and later texted that he might kill her. Brennan drank way too much, she told USA TODAY. However, she said she found some messages that supported her claims on an old laptop and old cellphone and produced screenshots of messages to Segar pleading for help to solve our problem.. She said Wilson would make comments about what I had on or he would stand too close to me or right on top of me while I was at my computer. In a statement, LSU said it does not tolerate sexual violence of any form. The warrant indicated that police obtained the text and photos of bruising. LSU football coach Ed Orgeron read a statement earlier this week that said: "First, I want to say that we need to support and protect victims of violence and sexual abuse of any kind. She asked, What happened? For obvious reasons, I did not do that, Andries said. Then, Sell gave her a 15-pound weight and asked the player to do squats again. Guice is out on bond. LSU police officers separated Davis and the woman but made no arrests. The people she doesnt like, she just makes them do extra; she yells at them at practice and is on them about the small, small things.. The judge placed Davis on two years' probation and ordered him to undergo mandatory counseling. His expulsion came as news to the woman, who said LSU never told her about it. Ultimately Davis pleaded guilty to two assaults; prosecutors dropped other charges against him in exchange. November 19, 2020, 6:39 AM. I remember repeatedly saying stop and no, Andries said. Then, in April 2017, the athletic department received reports of a second rape allegation against Guice, this time by a womens tennis player. As the season progressed, she found Sell to be a compulsive liar., She was never in my court. In the fallout, mens basketball coach Will Wade was fired. The first time LSU staff followed the law and school policies in reporting Davis was the following year, in April 2018, when he punched the woman again, this time in the ribs. I feel so badly for them and what they went through. Parrish sued the school alleging unfair treatment but withdrew the lawsuit in September, after a judge declined to temporarily lift his suspension. Without my permission.. The womans father said healso reported it to Mike Sell, his daughters coach at LSU who serves as womens tennis co-head coach alongside wifeJulia Sell. Brennan declined to press charges against Guice, saying she didnt want to ruin his life. 170 views, 1 likes, 1 loves, 0 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Gill Molly: Dr Phil Show 2023 Athletes Behaving Badly or Targets for. USA Today reported Monday that Davis began dating Lewis, who was unnamed in the article, in January 2017. Ausberry and Segar are cited as defendants in the lawsuit and declined to comment on it, citing an ongoing legal case. The former player was coached by Sell for one year and described the culture of the team that year as toxic. She suffered injuries that year and said Sell didnt seem to care. 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. Regarding Ms. Lewis lawsuit, we intend to defend these claims vigorously and not let it distract us from our true goals of improving our university, LSU Media Relations Director Ernie Ballard III said in a statement, adding that he will speak for all school employees. She's not going to be the bubbly, friendly person. "However, we are not perfect, and we can, and will, do better," Galligan wrote. Lewis also contends she was fired without cause and seeks damages. And then it progressed to: Lets go to dinner to discuss recruiting. I said, Frank, wheres your wife? A former tennis player disputed that, saying she personally reported Davis' abuse to Julia Sell six to seven months before that, at least., Im sure they knew, because I talked to her,the former player said of Julia Sell. The former players father said Sell was constantly focused on his daughters weight if she was losing weight, gaining too much weight, if she was too fast or too slow. So that sucked.. More: NCAA looks the other way as college athletes punished for sex offenses play on. The Crimson Tide has faced off with college baseball's top-ranked team on 46 occasions prior to Friday's opener with No. Officials in the universitys athletic department and broader administration repeatedly have ignored complaints against abusers, denied victims requests for protections and subjected them to further harm by known perpetrators. But at a football game two weeks after the ruling, Andries saw the frat member in the student section, she said. 1 triple jump performer in Lady Vol history, Tennessee graduate student Charisma Taylor posted a program record mark of 13.82 meters (45-4.25) on Saturday at the LSU Invitational to finish as the top collegiate athlete at the meet and second overall. Before thehearing panel, Sanders asked the women if they had additional evidence to present. All victims must be heard and supported, and we pledge to stand with them to help end all forms of sexual and domestic abuse.". Way-Too-Early Top 25. The father shared the same information with an LSU police detective in August 2018, a police report shows. After several delays, LSU sent her a one-page, four-sentence initial report. It lacked numerous details, including Guices name and her claim that hed shared the photo with others, which is a felony under Louisiana law. Parrish, who transferred to the University of Memphis in August, denied theallegationthrough his attorney. LSU repeatedly mishandled sexual assault reports against athletes. I was glad it was over, almost like a weight lifted off my shoulders., It was like, Yes, okay, I dont have these chains on me anymore. I dont have to be something Im not.. The incident caught the attention of LSU officials. BATON ROUGE, La. In spring 2019, Elisabeth Andries, an LSU industrial engineering major, encountered a familiar face in one of her classes: the fraternity member who she said sexually assaulted her two years earlier, when she was a freshman. We are committed to a culture of safety, equity and accountability for all students and staff. Additionally, my parents called during that time span to express their concern, and my coaches brushed them off. In another case, the school determined that a fraternity member had sexually assaulted two women, but it refused to move him out of classes he shared with one of them and altogether ignored an allegation against him by a third female student. She said after that, the family never spoke to Sell again. And any meetings that we have, I will be in the room with her. It was her way of protecting me. These were my teammates and closest friends at the time, and I needed their support. But LSU told her shed have to wait to access her police report until the statute of limitations ends six years from the time of the incident. Interviews with the woman, her father and several teammates, as well as a detailed LSU Police Department arrest report released after the case closed, demonstrate how LSU officials who were told of the abuse including by the woman and Davis directly repeatedly failed to act on the information, each time leaving her vulnerable to Davis increasingly violent attacks. He entered using a key the victim had given him. I was a mess, she said. Still, that season the former player said she had her best season. She said Sell never brought up the problems she was facing again, until their postseason meeting. She said she did not report the incident herself, but Lewis said she reported it to Segar, according to the lawsuit. LSU declined to make 10 coaches and administrators available for interviews. Obviously she didnt say that, but we were her least favorites. I never felt valued as a person.. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. As it turned out, another female student had already reported the same man for sexually assaulting her in almost the exact same way, the same night, on the same bus trip. I thought I would be really devastated to be done with it and graduate from LSU, she said. A former LSU women's tennis player says her former coach lied about her knowledge of a Tigers football player physically abusing her between May 2017 and August 2018 and accused the coach of . The players were happy to have a young, female coach and expected her to encourage and lead them. Lewis said she sent her own complaints and those from student workers in the football department, as well as her colleagues, to her superiors, Verge Ausberry, executive deputy athletic director, and Miriam Segar, senior associate athletic director. The former player said that Sell once had the skinniest player on the team stand in front of the rest of the team and do squats. The others have not been criminally charged. Two women recounted that Sell told one player that another had said hurtful comments about them. French Open. 1-ranked LSU (35-8, 15-5 SEC) swept all three games in the series, winning 8-6 on Friday, 12-8 on Saturday and 13-11 Sunday. She said Sell frequently dangled it over her head, threatening to take it away if she didnt meet expectations. Unfortunately that was not the case, and the harder they fought to keep me from my police report, the harder I fought to obtain it.. Lewis said she is not aware of any repercussions for Wilson. She transferred to Rutgers (where C. Vivian Stringer was head coach), but had to sit out a year due to the NCAA's then transfer rules. HoopGurlz 2023 Top 100. I do not feel even remotely a part of LSU anymore because of her.. Updated: 12:33 PM CDT September 18, 2022. She needs to be in control., I have heard that from the other girls, Lewis said. Obviously football has the power. It was real aggressive. Because theincident happened in her on-campus apartment, university officials were required under a federal law known as the Clery Act to report it to campus police, which must determine if Davis posed a serious or ongoing threatand whether to notify others. When Mulkey was coaching at Baylor, she pursued one of the nation's top players in guard Hailey Van Lith of Wenatchee, Washington who ultimately signed with Louisville. A reporter for The Advocate, a newspaper in Baton Rouge, asked Orgeron at a post-scrimmage press conference if he or anyone at LSU knew about the allegations before the arrest. He did not return phone and social media messages from a reporter. . 737K followers. Four months later, the East Baton Rouge Sheriffs Office arrested him again for battery of a different dating partner. No NFL team has picked him up. The womans roommate, a volleyball player, said that Davis had, in fact, strangled the woman that night. Three years later, in July 2018, investigators dropped the case, saying the victim had stopped communicating with them, records show. When contacted by a reporter, White hung up the phone after a question about protocols for reporting abuse. Andries requested to swap out of the class she shared with him, or take it online, she said, but LSU refused. On Aug. 19, Brennan herself requested a copy of her police report. Keri Frankenberger was a senior on that team. Her friend, Luke Dudley, a student equipment manager on the football team, introduced them. The report found that the school failed to properly handle multiple reports of sexual misconduct within LSU athletics. The Official Athletic Site of the LSU, partner of WMT Digital. The NOA alleged NCAA violations of a booster paying a football players family members $180,000 for working at a handful of events and NFL star Odell Beckham Jr. giving players cash on the field after they won the 2019 national championship. The school, she said, fears lawsuits and knows perpetrators are more likely than survivors to sue. No other emails were missing; just the ones from those two, she said. I think it made her doubt her ability to play tennis.. The former player, Jade Lewis, 21, of Hilton Head, South Carolina, posted a statement on Twitter on Wednesday night in which she accused LSU women's tennis co-head coach Julia Sell of failing to report her allegations of being physically abused by Tigers wide receiver Drake Davis. follow. She wants to be in control. He said, Why do you need to involve my wife? And that would back him off for a while. At least thats what Julia Sell said in a video posted to Facebook in May 2017, shortly after Johnson learned that her dream school had awarded her a scholarship. LSU didnt do the right thing back in 2016, but I was hoping they would do the right thing now. Although such reports often are public, university officials said the cases could still be prosecuted and releasing documents could harm the cases even though, years later, it has only shared one of them with the East Baton Rouge District Attorneys Office, the office said. BATON ROUGE, La. BATON ROUGE, La. She kind of acted like a child.. 2R (1997, 1998) Michael Sell (born August 23, 1972) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. I was like, What are you doing?, And then I got up and just ran down the hallway into Sharons office and just started crying. All I wanted was for someone to sit him down and tell him, Hey, this is not acceptable, dont do this again., But no one did anything, and it escalated and just went from 0 to 100 really fast.. Thats kind of all I remember, she said. They told me I had to sit and stay in it, said Andries, who is still at LSU. When football practice for the 2016 season began in early August, Guice was a full participant. The point isnt that I have to see him again;the point is that he did this and nothing happened.. LSU indefinitely suspended him from the team, and a judge ordered him to have no contact with the woman. Sell sent her a transcript of the event and told her they still announced her part of the transcript, even though she wasnt there. LSU women's tennis players also had their cases highlighted in the USA Today report. The suspension kicks in onlyif the student commits a second offense, and the school finds him responsible again. I thought LSU would kick me out, or that something would happen to my scholarship.. Just a bad, bad person, one former player said. I must have passed out.. 11 Texas, giving the program its highest ranked win in six years . Taylor's Thoughts. He did not, nor did he return a subsequent voicemail. But the Title IX office never reached out to Brennan, she said. Meanwhile, Guice is facing criminal charges in Virginia after a former girlfriend accused him of physically assaulting her multiple times and strangling her until she lost consciousness earlier this year. Upon her reentry into the vehicle Davis strangled the victim.". Once entering the victim's room he strangled her, punched her in the stomach, and grabbed her ear which caused her earring to be pulled from her ear; bleeding from the ear ensued." He admitted in court to punching the woman in the stomach and later pushing her onto a couch, which bruised and cut her leg. I just think that honestly they dont care, one of the women told USA TODAY. Official Fan Page for the LSU Women's Tennis Team. The conversation was not revealed until late August, when police found it after obtaining a search warrant for Davis phones. I wasnt posing for it. Guice and Davis included, at least nine LSU football players have been reported to police forsexual misconduct and dating violence since coach Ed Orgeron took over the team four years ago, records show. HoopGurlz 2025 Terrific 25. haileyvanlith. She started to suffer chronic panic attacks, she said, so she reported the incident to the school. They include running back Tae Provens, linebacker Jacob Phillips, tight end Zach Sheffer,all accused of rape;and safety Grant Delpit, who was accused of recording a woman during sex without her knowledge and sharing the videowith others. I would say that she was belittling to my daughter and to me on a couple of occasions., He said he received phone calls from Sell at least once and sometimes twice per week about his daughters weight and lack of motivation to practice. Three of those players were on the 2012-2013 team. April 26, 2023 6:18 pm ET. While her work recruiting top athletes to come to LSU was integral to her job as the associate athletic director of football recruiting and alumni relations, she said that protecting the school from itself became a part of what I had to do.. We provide education, training and resources to combat violence, sexual misconduct, and inequality, Orgeron said in his statement. I think that was partially due to her.. The newspaper reported that at least seven LSU officials "had direct knowledge" that Davis was physically abusing his girlfriend but "sat on the information for months, while Davis continued to assault and strangle her.". Luke Dudley, an LSU football equipment manager, says in text messages that Derrius Guice sent him the partially nude photo of Samantha Brennan. 'A very toxic environment:' Lies and Homophobia, featuring Kennan Johnson. If youre not the type to kiss up to her and give her what shes looking for, that ego trip, the former player said, then she had no mercy turning on you and having others turning on you and spreading false things about people to ruin your reputation.. Hes a baby. Deferred suspension, under LSU policy, is a period in which the student must stay out of trouble. That case has been delayed because of the coronavirus, a court official said. Delays, missteps and inaction have also plagued cases involving ordinary students, according to interviews with five women whove gone through the process, as well as corroborating documents they provided USA TODAY. When the women told LSU, they said, the school informed them that it had granted the frat member another extension, and that he was allowed to remain on campus. He described the calls as tattling., I think it hurt her mental health to be treated like that by Julia [Sell], he said. The 6-foot-1 LSU signee becomes just the fifth Louisiana I think I just kind of blacked out after that.. After LSU women's tennis Co-Head Coach Julia Sell gained national spotlight for allegedly ignoring reports that one of her players was a victim of rape, former LSU tennis players have come forward to describe the "toxic" culture of Sell's program. Her experience under Sell is consistent with accounts of two of her teammates, as well as those of four players who succeeded her. LSU policy requires employees who witness or are told about possible sexual misconduct or dating violence to notify the schools Title IX coordinator, who conducts an initial investigation. LSU suspended Parrish for one year. They said they did a new sexual assault allegation against the frat member by a third female student, who had confided in Andries and offered to speak to investigators. Still in pain three weeks later, the woman went to LSU athletic trainers to get examined. She has a motion hearing next week in Louisiana to defend against the schools efforts to have her case dismissed. You have permission to edit this article. Clinched a 4-2 win for Illinois over No. Early in the spring 2016 semester, a member of the LSU diving team told her coach and an athletic department administrator that Guice raped her friend after shed passed out drunk at a party. But once she began playing for Sell, that excitement faded. Want to share an anonymous news tip? Although her memory of the night is fuzzy, she recalled her date moving her to the back of the bus, ripping open her shirt and touching her without her consent. For more than a year, people at the highest levels of the Louisiana State University athletic department fielded complaints about their prized running back, Derrius Guice. Her father said it was horrible to watch Sell treat his daughter the way she did. One day we were in a meeting with another staff member, and while I was sitting at a table, Frank comes around to the side of me, kisses me on the lips. Named Big Ten Tennis Athlete of the Week twice (2018 and 2020) 2x member of the . The woman's father said he also reported it to Mike Sell and spoke to him twice in the summer of 2017 about his daughter's relationship with Davis. Yet even after finding him responsible twice, LSU refused to switch him out of the classes that he and Andries were set to share during the upcoming, fall 2019 semester, emails show. / She enrolled at two different universities before finally seizing an opportunity to return to a familiar environment. Davis then drove back and the victim reentered the vehicle. And thats just sad to say. The woman said the same when Sanders interviewed her two weeks later, though she acknowledged that Davis had punched her previously, records show. Finally, in June 2018, according to the report, "Davis was upset about a text message conversation and thus went to the victim's apartment. 'She was never in my court:' Playing Favorites and Doubting Injuries, featuring Keri Frankenberger. I have in the past and will continue to take appropriate action and comply with reporting protocols. Such an approach may explain why LSUs punishmentsfor sexual offenders have often amounted to a slap on the wrist. According to the three players, Sell held a team meeting about the incident on the following Monday, when she directed anger at the player who called police. For what? For its part, LSU has denied her allegations. They gave Sanders her nameand also suggested he speak to the fraternity president from the time. The relationship soon turned violent, the woman told police and USA TODAY, with Davis leaving the woman bruised or bleeding on at least six occasions over the course of just over one year. LSU didnt do the right thing back in 2016, but I was hoping they would do the right thing now, Brennan said. College baseball roundtable: Takeaways, most impressive teams, players and what to expect going forward, College baseball rankings: 2023 Top 25 poll, New Big Ten boss Petitti ready to lead 'new era', Nebraska volleyball eyes U.S. attendance record, 2023 NCAA gymnastics championships: Oklahoma repeats and Trinity Thomas ties record. LSU declined to make Sanders available for an interview and did not answer any questions about itshandling of the case. The former player was in rehab during her senior day match when the team read tributes to each senior. I was so embarrassed that all of these people knew.. I was scared. Lewis reportedly told police and USA Today that Davis left her bruised or bleeding on at least six occasions during the year in which they dated. A former LSU women's tennis player says her former coach lied about her knowledge of a Tigers football player physically abusing her between May 2017 and August 2018 and accused the coach of "betraying" her during an investigation. Fantasy Women's Basketball. She's cold and hard., She said the team was excited to have Sell as coach when she first came to LSU. University officials would not say if that happened, but the incident does not appear in LSUs public Clery crime log. She said she told Sell about the drug and alcohol use because she felt like she didnt know where else to turn to. Some of the women in this story are not being named because it is USA TODAYs policy not to identify individuals who allege sexual crimes and domestic violence without their permission. TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - No. Former LSU tennis player Jade Lewis is accusing LSU women's tennis coach Julia Sell of looking the other way while multiple people reported in 2017 and 2018 that a football player. Sell would frequently lie to her players, seven interviewed players said. Schools are not oblivious to the fact that even if they can defeat a lawsuit, its still a drain on resources, Nesbitt said. Johnson, who grew up with a single mother and lived with her grandparents, needed that scholarship to attend LSU. The newspaper reported that the two coaches and athletic trainer later told police that they weren't aware of Davis' conduct until a year later. FollowNBCBLKonFacebook,TwitterandInstagram. But Sharon wouldnt have it.. Elizabeth Taylor, a Temple University professor who studies sexual assault and harassment within athletics organizations, said LSU exhibits the same "pattern of continually mishandling these types of incidents that was seen at Baylor, Penn State and Michigan State. Putting an end to sexual assault is an institutional priority, and we are constantly working to achieve that goal.. By JIMMY WATSON Shreveport Times Parkway guard Mikaylah Williams, already showered with accolades from numerous organizations, moved into more rarified air Saturday when she was named the Louisiana Farm Bureau Insurance/Miss Basketball winner for 2023 by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for the second straight year. If I was the only one reporting, and the investigation found that someone reported to Verge and Miriam and that they didnt do anything, whats their argument?. [1] He was the co-head coach of the women's tennis team at Louisiana State University with Julia Sell from 2015 to April 2022. The victim provided pictures of bruising around her neck from the strangulation, according to police. Brennan told USA TODAY she doesnt remember Guice coming to her apartment or giving him permission to be there. She just breezed right by the personal issues I was having because I was doing well on the court, the player said. Instead, LSU gave her a template for a letter that she could send him directly, instructing him not to contact her. LSU denied the frat members final appeal that October. She was excited to play for a young, female coach at an SEC school. They drank heavily, to the point that she was vomiting, she said. She said she dreaded going to practice and playing matches because she felt she wasnt supported, valued or appreciated for who she was. But USA TODAY found no evidence that White, Mike Sell or Julia Sell informed anyone. The player came into college with what she described as disordered eating habits and body image issues. On Nov. 13, the university providedthree of them. Yet at each step of the way, LSU officials either doubted the womens stories, didnt investigate, or didnt call the police, allowing Guice to continue his football career. The team shrieks and embraces her in a group hug. The player said she saw no warning signs of the treatment she would later receive from Sell while she was being recruited. However, LSU is insisting Lewis did not make any reports, despite briefly suspending her bosses because they did not act on the same complaints Husch Blackwell found had been reported by Lewis. Privacy Policy As part of a broader crackdown on universities for mishandling sexual violence, the U.S. Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights launched a sex-discrimination investigation into LSU in August 2015, after a woman filed a complaint saying that no one informed her of her Title IX options when she reported her sexual assault to campus police. Got a question? LSU in June 2019 found the frat member responsible for sexually assaulting both women, case records the women shared with USA TODAY show. She just didnt like us, the former player said. USA TODAY reached out to all of the players directly or through attorneys or team spokesmen. In the first incident, the woman went to Davis' house to retrieve personal items and he allegedly punched her in the stomach. Share this investigation. College softball rankings: The top 25 teams in the NCAA this week, Quinnipiac stuns Minnesota to win first national title. Those two women were Johnson and Jade Lewis. They did not file police reports. A Baton Rouge federal judge has dismissed a racial discrimination lawsuit that former longtime LSU women's tennis coach Tony Minnis filed against the university after his 2012 firing. It was a very toxic environment, she said. What did he do?, Lewis, the womans supervisor, told her not to work directly with Frank at all, the woman recalled. Godchaux was not charged in court; Parkers case is pending, the DA's office said. In that Facebook video about her scholarship, Johnson, surrounded by her teammates on LSUs tennis courts, opens an envelope. Davis withdrew from the university a day later, school directory information shows. It has happened before., When Johnson was still in high school, she attended one LSU tennis senior day. But Frank retaliated against me, tried to get me fired. It was just all so overwhelming," Lewis said. LSU continues to withhold police and Title IX records from at least two women who've requested copies of their own files. We were never a cohesive unit. Alabama's last trip to Baton Rouge came from May 14-16, 2021. Andries said she asked the school to notify her professor about the case, to explain her absences. Johnson also said Sell told her at one point to keep her lifestyle out of the locker room, referring to her homosexuality, lest she make teammates uncomfortable or become a distraction..
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