Greg Winslow Files: Part 2 — Coach Accused of Sex Abuse in Arizona Had Troubled Tenure at Utah, Including an Affair With Another Coach

PREVIOUSLY IN THIS SERIES
Introducing the Greg Winslow Files: Part 1 — A Military Background, A ‘Groomed’ Marriage

by Irvin Muchnick and Tim Joyce

Last Thursday we reported that the Arizona State University police recommended two felony charges against Greg Winslow for sexual abuse of a minor. The University of Utah immediately suspended Winslow as head swimming coach at least until the Maricopa County prosecutor acts on that recommendation.

Since then, we have been inundated with new information from sources — almost all of them from the Utah community, some on the record — documenting alleged misconduct during Winslow’s six years there. In this series, we will present that information as we confirm and further source it.

For now, we’ll say that the outpouring of lack of support for Winslow is unprecedented in our experience as journalists. By the nature of their work, coaches accrue some enemies: they are forced daily to make difficult personal and sports choices. Still, the vehemence and unanimity of the antipathy toward Winslow is striking. It comes both from athletes who left his program of their own volition and from those who got thrown off the team after clashing with him.

What is most extraordinary, perhaps, was observing the unmistakable private celebration of Winslow’s downfall in some quarters, among the current Utah roster, after athletic director Chris Hill ordered Winslow abruptly pulled off the deck at the Pac-12 Championships in Federal Way, Washington.

And there is yet another population of bitter denigrators of Winslow: parents of student-athletes who felt their sons were, at minimum, badly mistreated, and their own trust in the coach hurtfully breached. We will get to these allegations one by one; all are consistent with the alcoholism, violence, and culture of fear and harassment chronicled by former Utah swimmer Austin Fiascone (whose timeline, again, is viewable at http://muchnick.net/fiasconetimeline.pdf).

“He’s a slimebag type of guy — the lowest of the low as far as I’m concerned,” Fiascone said. As for rumors of sexual misconduct, they were “rampant since I got here” in 2009.

For this installment, we relate a specific act of sexual impropriety by Winslow that we can confirm in Utah. That is his extramarital affair with a female assistant on his staff, who coached the divers.

Her name was Kelsey Patterson. She was terminated at Utah — it is not clear whether her affair with Winslow was the reason — and she is now the swimming and diving coach at a high school in Colorado, where she uses a different last name. Her bio at the high school website states only that she “has coached in a variety of age groups, ranging from young children, to NCAA Division I.”

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FURTHER READING

EXCLUSIVE: Greg Winslow, University of Utah Coach With Deep Roots in Elite Swimming, Faces Charges of Sexually Abusing Underage Girl at Arizona State Club Program