Chapter 1: What content warnings should listeners be aware of?
Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting. Please consume with care. This season discusses sexual, physical and psychological violence. For a full content warning, sources and resources, please visit the episode notes. Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Broken Cycle Media.
The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. The university's responses to our outreach for comment are included within our reporting this chapter. Thank you so much for listening.
When it was passed in 1972, Title IX began to transform the landscape of American athletics by prohibiting sex-based discrimination in any federally funded education program, including school sports. Although the law does not specifically mention athletics, it has been impactful, as opportunities for girls and women expanded dramatically in the decades that followed the passing of Title IX.
As a result, athletics became both a battleground and a symbol of Title IX's broader fight for gender equality in education. However, the statistics of sexual assault show us a dark side to college athletics. A study by Dr. Koss based on national data from 2015 concluded that male athletes were involved in roughly one-third of all reported sexual assaults committed on college campuses.
Previously, a 1996 study using official records from 10 Division I collegiate institutions concluded that while, quote, athletes constitute 3.3% of the college population, they perpetrate 19% of all sexual assaults on campus, end quote. And as a 2005 U.S. Department of Education Higher Education Center publication reports, quote,
quote, athletes account for less than 2% of the total college student population, but that 2% represents 23% of all sexual assault assailants and perpetrates 14% of the attempted sexual assaults on campuses, end quote. Many victims of athlete-perpetrated sexual harassment or assault face an added layer of scrutiny amidst their journey to justice. The public's opinion.
A 2024 study by Dr. Meyer highlights that when a well-known perpetrator is involved, public recourse surrounding sexual assault, quote, vilifies women and allows celebrity status to protect male transgressors by tapping into gendered cultural contexts of rape myths and empathy, end quote. On college campuses, athletics are often the front door of the university brand.
In chapter three, we examine what happens when that brand is threatened. Marissa, a student at Utah Valley University, experienced a devastating assault by an acquaintance, who at the time was a well-known football player at the University of Utah.
And although her rape was devastating, the institutional betrayal Marissa describes while seeking support from both universities was equally as detrimental. Still, Marissa persevered, seeking accountability through every route possible, engaging the criminal courts, the civil courts, Title IX, and even the media.
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Chapter 2: How did Title IX transform college athletics and its implications?
I grew up LDS, or as most people know it, Mormon. It's pretty much all I've known for my whole life. And I think that in Utah, we live in a bubble. Things that happen outside in the world are not talked about as much. And there are things that are very nuanced. Rape is one of them. I sort of grew up thinking that men could do no wrong. In the LDS religion, everyone who is...
high up in the church. Most of them are men. They've done better now, but growing up that's how it was. I think that most of the direction that I took throughout my life was from men. I always had the impression that men were trustworthy and that men had the best intentions and that what men said was Bible, basically.
And I know a lot of people around me who also grew up in Utah, not even necessarily in the church, felt similarly. Your job as a woman is to be there for men. It's common everywhere, but especially here in Utah, people get married very young, and women don't always graduate from college. They take that role as being a young mom, and that gives a lot of control to men.
I think in a lot of ways, if you have a good man, it works out. But I think if not, it's a very confusing avenue for a lot of women to go down and to try to relearn and re-understand who they are and how they should be treated and the rights that they have. I think growing up here has been a blessing in some ways.
I feel like I have been sheltered from a lot of things that happened, but it has also been a huge curse because when this did happen to me, I had no idea where to turn or what to do.
It wasn't until I went through this experience and I had experiences with the universities and with different people who were meant to help me that I really realized the severity of what happens even in Utah, even in the Mormon religion.
Thank you.
things that I saw in movies and meetings I had with counselors in high school. I had an expectation for what I thought college would be, the way I would be advised and how I would be helped through my degree. I was never spoken to about what to do in a situation like this, where to go.
And so I just think along with signing up for your college classes and doing all these things, I also think it would be super helpful to have information on what you could do if something bad happened and prepare for the worst.
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Chapter 3: What dark statistics surround sexual assault in college athletics?
I would say I was a very social person. Even when I wasn't living down here in Orem, I was down here every weekend hanging out with friends and doing things.
What would you say the college campus culture is like in general? Was the LDS population at the school pretty high?
Yeah, most people down here are LDS. And those who aren't, they all know about LDS, about the values and the culture here. I think there was a lot of people who were not making choices that aligned with the LDS faith. I had gone to a lot of parties with student athletes, both of UVU and BYU, where they were drinking and they were doing things that the LDS faith doesn't really condone.
I think, especially if you grew up LDS, everyone has a time in their life where they find their faith or they find that they don't believe in a higher power or whatever it is. Everyone's just trying to figure out what they believe in. And being a young adult, they're trying to figure out their interests. They're away from home for the first time and they're trying to figure out who they are.
When I went into college, I kind of went back and forth with my major and what I wanted to do. Eventually, I landed on media, public relations, and I wanted to actually do sports media to either be a sports announcer or be PR behind a sports team. We have a couple of sports teams here in Utah, but I was willing to move. That's the major that I was in when my assault happened.
And because of the nature of my assault, that all changed pretty quickly for me. When did you first meet SL? I did know SL while he was in high school. He was a little bit younger than me and we had a mutual friend. And I was invited one time to go over to his parents' house to watch a boxing fight. So that's the first time I got introduced to him.
After that, we were just kind of acquaintances for years. He graduated from high school. He went on to play football at Stanford, and I would hear about him through our mutual friend as we were catching up with life. We followed each other on social media, but it was always kind of distant.
I thought of him sort of like a little brother in a sense, but more distant than that because we didn't communicate a lot. It wasn't until this mutual friend was getting married that I had more contact with him. It's the rehearsal dinner before the wedding the next day. His whole family was there, but we were sitting at a separate table away from his family.
They had sat him next to me with his little name card. And that was the first time I really talked to him in person for a long period of time. He was asking me questions like, why aren't you married yet? Because in Utah, it's very common to be married by the time you're 21. I just remember kind of joking with him and saying, I just haven't found the right person.
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Chapter 4: How did Marissa's experience with assault and institutional betrayal unfold?
I knew that he had substance issues and I knew that his family was also LDS. I was so confused why they would allow alcohol in the basement and why they were allowing this loud music, but he said it's because they were out of town. I was with my two friends, Sarah and Olivia. There was probably seven other football players at the house and then me and my two friends.
We were all just kind of hanging out. It was a casual thing. From the get-go, he was not making sense. He wasn't putting together proper sentences and we could just tell something was off with him. But we attributed it to he's been drinking and we just kind of went with it. My friend Sarah was trying to hang out with another athlete, we'll call him Jay, and he wasn't there.
And so we were all confused because that was sort of the purpose of what we were doing. My other friend Olivia, the football player she was hanging out with, was there and they were just kind of shooting the breeze. But really we were waiting for Jay to get there. And as the night went on, still no Jay. And so we went up and told SL that we were going to leave and that we were ready to go.
At this point, it was almost midnight and obviously we were tired. It had been a long night. That's when he really started to act weird. He told us that he was going to go call Jay. The mood and the vibe of the night had really died down. A lot of the football players had left. My friend Olivia, the football player she was talking to, he had left.
And she had actually gone to FaceTime a friend out in the car. SL came back and he told us that Jay was on his way to stick around a little bit longer. Once we knew that Jay was on his way, we went to the car to be with my friend Olivia. My friend Sarah was putting on perfume, getting ready for Jay to be there. We're just talking about what our plan is for the night.
Olivia had said that she needed to go around the corner to pick up another girl who needed a ride. Sarah didn't want us to leave her there. And so I told her I would stay with her. I knew Jay a little bit. And so I felt like I could break the ice.
But I told Olivia that when she came back, even if I'm not responding to your text messages, please come inside and please come get me because I don't want to get stuck in any situation that I can't get out of. Obviously, looking back now, this seems like a little bit of foreshadowing.
But at the time, I was anticipating that maybe I would get in a situation with SL where he wanted to kiss or he wanted to cuddle.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did Marissa face in seeking justice?
And I wasn't ready to do that. And I knew because he was not coherent that it would be really hard to turn him down in that way because I didn't know what he was going to try. My friend Olivia said that she would be gone for just a couple minutes and then she would get me. This would give me the ability to talk with Sarah and Jay and get them comfortable and then I could go.
The issue was that when Jay came, he came without a car. Someone dropped him off and so it was going to be my job because I was the driver for the night to take him home after the night was over. And at this point, it's 1230, one o'clock. That's when kind of my nerves started. I realized that I was going to have to be there for a while.
And I actually sent a text to my friends in our group message. And I said, don't leave me alone with SL, please. Come right back in when you get here. I was not anticipating anything like what happened could have happened. At this point, I was just really wanting to make sure that my friend was safe and that she was taken care of. My name is Sarah.
I know Marissa from high school. We have known each other for about 13 years now and have stayed friends ever since. Marissa is one of the most giving, kind, selfless people that I know. And that's actually something that drew me to her all those years ago. She is a really, really good friend. She's always there for her other friends.
Chapter 6: How do societal perceptions impact victims of athlete-perpetrated violence?
Just a super reliable, great person. we hung out a lot she was one of my best friends and we were spending most weekends together how well did you know SL I knew SL from high school. I had hung out with him a couple times. It had been a couple years since I had seen him, so not super well, but I was familiar with him. He did not have a great reputation.
I think he was at Stanford and transferring to the U. I didn't think he had a great reputation, but I felt like maybe Marissa knew him better than I did.
What did you understand or know about the relationship between Marissa and SL?
I know that they had kind of texted here and there, but it felt more friendship-like to me, especially because he was like a few years younger than her. Maybe a little flirty here and there, but definitely more like friend vibes.
SL's friend Jay, who was also supposed to be at this party that night, it sounds like somebody you had a crush on.
Yeah, so we hadn't officially met before, but we were messaging on Instagram and would kind of just respond to each other's stories here and there. So that was the first time that we were planning to hang out. We were just there for a party. We were like, oh, let's see if he wants to come because we had talked about hanging out.
What do you remember about discussing with Marissa going to this function and what was your guys' impression of how the night was supposed to go?
We had gone to a previous party before, but then we had heard that these guys were going over to SL's house. And so we were like, oh, let's just go over there. We were mostly just trying to meet new people, hang out and see where the night took us. I had been there a couple times before in high school. It was a pretty big house. We just parked out front, went inside.
It was kind of weird when we walked in and we felt like there were more people in the house asleep. It was definitely confusing. And then everyone was down in the basement. Once we went downstairs, there was like music playing and there was more going on down there. Some people were watching a movie, some people were like on the sports court playing basketball.
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Chapter 7: What are the emotional and practical steps after a sexual assault?
His room was attached to the theater room. He had started asking me if I wanted to go to his room. And I kept repeating, no, like I want to stay out here with Sarah. I want to make sure she's comfortable and okay. And he keeps telling me, I know Jay, he's a good guy. She'll be just fine. Let's just go to my room and talk. I said, no, let's just stay out here.
Watch the movie for a little bit longer. But eventually after so many times asking, I agreed. And we went to his room and it just has a little sliding door. It's not even like a door that closes. It just slides with a tiny little opening. We were in there and I turned around and I sat down on the bed. And when I looked up at him, he was already taking off his shirt.
And at this time, there is so much going through my head. I am not even considering still that something so horrible was going to occur. And that's when he pulled my legs up and laid me back on the bed. He took off my pants and immediately he said, I've been waiting so long for this. At this point, I'm still kind of taking it lightheartedly, but I am getting very nervous. My heart starts to race.
And this is when the assault begins. And immediately I tell him that we cannot have sex. Sex was definitely my line. And I felt so much pressure and anxiety at this point. I just remember repeating to him over and over, we cannot have sex. He reassured me over and over, who says we're having sex? We're not going to have sex. Relax, relax.
And then the assault continued and he continued to push it farther and farther. I thought that if something like this had ever happened to me, I would have been a fighter, but my body definitely shut down on me. I continuously was trying to tell him, slow down, stop, slow down, stop. And he kept telling me, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this.
Relax, nothing bad's going to happen to you. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you. To me, this was a huge red flag because I already said nothing was going to happen. We had already communicated that. Then he started to get more physical. I remember sitting up on the bed and he would pull me back down and he would find different ways to try to have sex with me.
I would get up and he would pull me back down. It didn't really feel like he was listening or that I was even in the room with him. I kept trying to communicate to him, stop, no, but he wasn't listening. Eventually, he ended up on top of me with his arms open.
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Chapter 8: What was the university's response to Marissa's report of assault?
under my arms holding me down. And that's when the longest portion of the rape occurred. And that's when I started speaking really loudly and saying stop because I thought that my friend Sarah would hear me and that she would come in. No one came in. At that point, I left my body. I had probably said no and stopped forever. 40 times. And he just kept saying, what's wrong? What's wrong? Relax.
He even told me that he loved me twice. And because of the nature of our relationship, that's why it felt like he wasn't talking to me because there was no previous interaction that would have given him a reason to say that. After some time passed, he had thrusted back. That's when I rolled to the side a little bit and he rolled over.
And that's when I got up and I started to frantically put on my pants. Keep in mind, this whole time my shirt stayed on and we never kissed on the lips. I grabbed my pants and I grabbed my shoes and I ran. I remember the first thing I saw when I opened the sliding door was a football player asleep on the couch.
I looked back at him and he was frantically putting on his pants and trying to get his clothes on. I ran up his stairs and I ran out the side door. I am running down this cul-de-sac. I'm trying to call my friend who was supposed to be right around the corner, and I can't even verbalize what's going on. I am so in shock. I tell her something bad happened. Immediately, she said, I knew it.
I had such a bad feeling. She said, I'm just around the corner. I'm coming up. I'm continuing to run down the cul-de-sac and she's coming up the street in my car and I hop in the passenger side.
She's asking me what happened and I'm crying and I'm trying to explain to her what's going on and I keep saying I tried so hard to get him to stop and he wouldn't stop and I don't understand why he didn't stop. We drove up the street because we still had my friend Sarah who was up at the house and
SL was running down the street after me my friend cracked the window down and she said will you please go get Sarah and he said what's going on is she okay talking about me and my friend said just go get Sarah please so he goes back in to get Sarah Sarah comes out to the car And we have a conversation about what happened. She's so confused. And Jay is not in the car.
And she said, we have to wait for him. He's over talking to SL. I'm asking Sarah what happened. And I was yelling for her. And she said that they had gone upstairs and they walked into a room and that his little brother was sleeping. So his parents weren't out of town. They were home while this was going on. And that was just quite shocking to me.
Jay came out to the car and we started driving and he asked me, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm just tired. And he asked me one more time and I said the same thing and I was just kind of turned in towards the window. I didn't want him to see me crying. I was still so in shock from what had happened. I was so not in my body. We took Sarah and Jay to Sarah's car.
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