The Morning After: What Happens Next in the Story of Deposed Utah Coach Greg Winslow and the Generation-Old and Unraveling USA Swimming Sex Abuse Scandals
Arizona State Clears Its Throat: ‘Victim Not a Student at the University’
March 1, 2013Back to San Diego: Don’t Believe a Word of the Nonsense from Con Man James Pantera About Whistleblower Mike Saltzstein’s ‘Bullying’ and ‘Retaliation’
March 1, 2013by Irvin Muchnick
William Pitts of NBC12 News in Phoenix did a superb report last night that included interviews with Tim Joyce and myself. In 2 minutes and 52 seconds, Pitts packed and interpreted all the angles of the Greg Winslow story, local and national, better than any print report I’ve seen so far. The link is http://www.azcentral.com/video/#/News/Former+ASU+coach+accused+of+sexual+abuse/40280768001/35150280001/2196500261001.
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Yesterday Utah associate athletics director Liz Abel offered the boilerplate defense of the clearly inadequate investigation of Winslow by the university’s Office of Equal Opportunity. She referred us to university communications director Keith Sterling for further comment, but Sterling did not return a message.
However, the longer and better Associated Press accounts yesterday — for example, http://espn.go.com/olympics/swimming/story/_/id/8999560/utah-suspends-swim-coach-abuse-allegations — have the information, via Sterling, that Utah did indeed receive a call from the Arizona State University police during their investigation, which has culminated in a recommendation of two charges against Winslow for sexual abuse of a minor.
The AP report also says that according to Sterling, Utah stands by its own investigation of Winslow but now “wants to bring in a fresh set of eyes.”
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I got and read the ASU report yesterday, and I have changed my mind about uploading it in full. The redactions aren’t deep enough — for example, the victim’s first name was not blacked out, often for reasons of narrative clarity. In due course I expect to be quoting substantial segments, most especially the summary and conclusions.
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In Dr. Zhivago, the title character, played by Omar Sharif, asks Rod Steiger’s Komarovski: “What happens to a girl like that, when a man like you is finished with her?”
Across the country — in Arizona, in Utah, in San Diego, in Michael Phelps’ Baltimore — the parents are coming out of the woodwork to Tim Joyce and me. We’ll be rolling out their untold stories and unlearned lessons. The Greg Winslow saga is but a microcosm of the national disgrace that our Olympic swimming program has become.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put back together the criminals in USA Swimming.