ESPN’s Enterprise Journalism on Sexual Misconduct

Fact Sheet: ESPN’s enterprise journalism unit has covered sexual abuse in and around athletics extensively over the course of the last two decades. For those interested in what stories ESPN delved into, please refer to the below list of 16 long-form sexual-abuse stories/pieces reported by Outside the Lines, E:60 and/or ESPN.com.

Outside the Lines

November, 2011: OTL breaks story on Syracuse associate head coach Bernie Fine accused of molesting two ball boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

March, 2010: OTL investigation of USA Swimming and, in particular, coach Andy King, a veteran San Jose-area coach who pleaded no contest to 20 molestation charges and is now serving a 40-year sentence for more than 30 years of abuse.

May, 2010: OTL piece on Palm Desert, Calif., high school coach Ashley Nieto, who lost her job because her husband, a registered sex offender, helped out with the team.

August, 2008: OTL piece on sexual hazing case involving Wilson, N.Y., high school baseball players. Coaches allegedly allowed the abuse to occur on a school bus during a ride home from a game.

April, 2008: OTL piece on Marcus Dixon, an 18-year-old Rome, Georgia football player who has his scholarship to Vanderbilt pulled after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old female classmate.

Jan., 2005: OTL piece on Colorado Hoopsters AAU coach Rick Lopez, who was accused of molesting three players on his nationally prominent travel team. Lopez was later imprisoned, where he hanged himself.

Sept., 2001: “Broken Trust: Coaches and Sexual abuse,” an hour-long OTL program that looked at coaches who betray the trust of young athletes and parents, including interviews with three coaches imprisoned for sexual abuse of young athletes.

In the last four years: OTL investigated University of Florida women’s swimming coach Mitch Ivey for alleged relationships with swimmers. Three weeks after ESPN showed up on campus, the university fired Ivey.

E:60

Nov. 8, 2011: “The Athletes of Bahrain,” examined what happened to Alaa Hubail, the country’s most famous soccer player, who was taken into custody, tortured, threatened with sexual assault, and banned from his team, all because he expressed his political views.

May 3, 2011: “Mike Danton,” reported on the attempts by the promising NHL player to rebuild his life after a failed murder-for-hire plot -- he claimed the intended target was his father, whom he says abused him when he was a child -- landed him in jail for almost five years.

May 11, 2010: “Corrective Rape in South Africa,” was Jeremy Schaap’s report from Johannesburg on former national team soccer star Eudy Simelane, who had been was gang-raped, an example of “Corrective” rape, where men rape gay women to “cure” them of their lesbianism, the latest phenomenon in a country with the highest reported rate of rape worldwide.

Oct.  27, 2009: “Broken Silence: Theo Fleury,” the former NHL star, who spent much of his life battling alcohol, cocaine, gambling and women addictions, contends the source of his demons was that his junior hockey coach repeatedly sexually molested him over a two year period beginning when Fleury was 14 years old.  

April 15, 2008: “Violated: Gymnastics Abuse,” investigated how, despite efforts by USA Gymnastics to keep pedophile coaches out of the nation's gymnasiums, child molesters still found ways to beat the system and gain access to kids.

ESPN.com

March, 2009: Feature on Margaret Hoelzer, an Olympic swimmer who is haunted to this day as a result of the sexually abuse she suffered from the father of one of her friends when she was between the ages of 5 and 7.

August, 2008: OTL piece on sexual hazing case involving Wilson, N.Y., high school baseball players and coaches who apparently allowed the abuse to occur on a school bus during a ride home from a game.

October, 2007: E Ticket on Genarlow Wilson, a high school football player and honor student who was given a 10-year prison term for consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.

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