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Chapter 1: What are the alarming allegations of emotional abuse in college sports?
I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday story from Up First, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. And just a heads up, today's story includes mentions of sexual and emotional abuse, suicide and bullying, and includes explicit language. We know all too well the stories of the sexual abuse of college athletes. A former U.S.
Olympic gymnastics team doctor pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse in Michigan State Court today. Child sex abuse charges have now stained a legendary story of college football, the long-running success story of Penn State. In some cases, the violation of athletes by people who were supposed to care for them went on for years. Sometimes those with power to stop the abuse did little or nothing.
Chapter 2: How does emotional abuse differ from physical and sexual abuse in athletics?
How could this have happened to so many athletes and for so long? Today's story asks that same question, but we're talking about a different kind of abuse of power. I've seen her call us useless, stupid, incompetent, when we couldn't complete a drill at her level. I've seen my teammates crying. When we come back, a look at the complicated issue of emotional abuse in college sports.
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Chapter 3: What specific patterns of emotional abuse have been identified by investigators?
You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. We're back with the Sunday story and joining us now are reporters Julia Haney and Elizabeth Santos.
Chapter 4: How did Julia Pernsteiner try to report her coach's abusive behavior?
They've been investigating the issue of emotional abuse in college sports for the past year. Julia and Elizabeth, welcome to the podcast. It's great to be here. Thanks for having us. So Julia and Elizabeth, I think many of us are familiar with the stories of coaches who are really tough and demanding of their players. But your reporting is about something different.
You've been looking into the issue of emotional abuse in college sports. That's right, Aisha. We found that emotional abuse can look different from coach to coach. But there are specific patterns, things like verbal attacks, manipulation, and controlling behaviors. That's just to name a few. And we're not talking about one-off moments where a coach, for example, loses their temper.
We're talking about persistent behaviors that begin to impact student-athletes' mental well-being. And the stakes can be high. So what does that look like in practice?
Chapter 5: What were the consequences of Julia Pernsteiner's allegations?
To really explain that, we want to tell you about Julia Pernsteiner, a student athlete in Jacksonville, Florida. We cannot get her story out of our heads. She was a D1 cross-country runner at Jacksonville University. Her friends, teammates, and those who are close with her describe her as determined and goofy. They say that she had a powerful, intuitive read on people.
And in the fall of 2021, Pernsteiner started making a series of phone calls. She called everyone she could think of to report that her track coach was abusive. The coach, Ronald Gregg, was the longtime head of the program. I mean, you said she was calling everyone. Like, what do you mean by that? Everyone. Everyone.
Well, in a legal complaint filed by her family, it's clear that Pernsteiner reached out to a lot of people about Griggs' alleged behavior, including her college's administrators, trainers, and the Jacksonville University Athletic Department.
Chapter 6: How did the legal system respond to emotional abuse claims in college sports?
Pernsteiner also called the university's counseling center, a local hospital, a law firm, a legal aid group, a women's center, local and national nonprofits, news organizations, and the NCAA. That's according to a local TV reporter who later went through Pernsteiner's call log. And an off-duty officer for the sheriff's department even came to speak with her.
He was working as a campus security officer at the time. And it was actually the body camera footage that really stood out to us. That same local TV reporter, Samantha Mathers, posted the footage on YouTube. In this clip, which is a little scratchy, you can hear Julia Pernsteiner telling the officer how her coach was treating her. He'd be like, why do I keep you around?
Chapter 7: What changes are being proposed to protect student-athletes from emotional abuse?
Like, you're not smart, you're not fast, like, why do I keep you around? Like, trying to, like, and he kept saying that, like, basically, like, mind-fucking me, like, telling me to, like, go kill yourself, like, you're awful, like... And she says... One time I was talking with him and he said, he was like, I've never hit you, have I? The officer asks... So has he... Has he physically touched you?
No. No.
Chapter 8: What has been the outcome for the athletes involved in these abuse cases?
So Pernsteiner isn't saying that Grigg physically touched her or physically hit her or anything. Right. She says he humiliated and degraded her. But there was nothing the officer could do about that. Here he is again. The bad thing is that in Duval County, the state of Florida, emotionally abusiveness isn't a crime. There's nothing criminal with... No crime has been committed with that.
That's so fucked up. After some back and forth, the officer tells her... It's just not a criminal statute to make people feel bad. The question is whether the coach's alleged behavior went beyond that. Pernsteiner's teammates say he called her things like retarded, useless, and the slowest fucking runner in the world.
Greg had actually cut Pernsteiner from the team a month before she spoke with this officer, according to the family's legal complaint. So, I mean, that's going to raise the question, like, was this someone who was just, you know, upset that she'd been kicked off the team? Well, but she wasn't the only student athlete who claimed they'd been mistreated.
In recordings that Pernsteiner made, she said she collected testimonials from 20 other athletes, and they told her that they'd experienced similar verbal abuse and body shaming. Right. They also alleged that he held scholarships over their heads and bullied women on the team.
A volunteer assistant coach, Alexa Ibar, said she'd also been mistreated by Greg and told us that she had reported him to the athletic department. A track team alum also told us that Julia was encouraging teammates to submit complaints as well. But none of this made a difference on the day that Julia Pernsteiner met with that officer.
After he left her that day, he wrote in his report, Julia made no criminal allegations and appeared in good physical health. Let us pray. Weeks later, Julia Pernsteiner took her life in her dorm room. She was 23 years old. Her funeral was held near her hometown in Minnesota and posted on YouTube. O God, who have set a limit to this present life so as to open up an entry into eternity.
Her uncle read a poem he wrote with the refrain, Run free, Julia, run free. Run free, Julia, run free. I know you are with God in heaven now. You made it to the finish line. I mean, that's beyond devastating, right? And I can't imagine what her family and teammates were going through. It was a really rough time for them.
When we spoke to Sadie Morris, another runner, she said that the team was in shambles. My teammates weren't doing well when they came back after break. She says she was still running well at practice, but others were struggling emotionally. According to Morris, Coach Gregg was frustrated. She was like, oh, so is your teammates going to use Julia's death as a get-out-of-jail-free card?
So what happened to the coach? So Coach Grigg continued to coach for the rest of that season after Pernsteiner died. He resigned the following summer. He hasn't responded to our calls or emails requesting an interview.
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