The University of San Francisco on Sunday fired its longtime baseball coach after three former players filed a class action lawsuit alleging he and a former assistant fostered "an intolerable sexualized environment" around the program.
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The lawsuit, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, was filed on Friday in U.S. District Court and targets the team's head coach over the last 23 years, Nino Giarratano, and former associate coach, Troy Nakamura.
In a release, the university said the firing, effective immediately, comes after both the lawsuit and "subsequent news coverage… revealed new allegations related to the behavior and judgements" of Giarratano and Nakamura which "affected the well-beings of the students on the USF baseball team."
Among the accusations, the former players, identified in the lawsuit as John Doe 1, John Doe 2, and John Doe, 3, told the paper Nakamura used "sexually graphic language, flipped a player into a handstand, pretended to eat spaghetti out of his crotch area during a pre practice skit and once crawled onto the field naked." They alleged that Giarratano witnessed the nude incident and, in response, simply kissed his cross and looked skyward.
The players accused the coaches of bullying, including Giarratano trying to force one of the students to give up his scholarship by "constantly belittling him."
The lawsuit alleged that the situation left multiple players "suicidal," the paper said. Tyler Imbach, who played at USF for one semester before transferring to Santa Barbara City College, told the Chronicle he had an undiagnosed anxiety through high school and his condition worsened at USF, sending him "over the edge."
The university investigated earlier complaints from team members last December, which resulted in Nakamura's firing on Jan. 13 and an "official reprimanding" of Giarratano on Jan. 24, though it's unclear what Giarratano’s specific punishment was. The school said it learned that Giarratano allowed Nakamura to be on the field on March 9, nearly two months after he was terminated.
USF and National Collegiate Athletic Association were also named in the lawsuit, which accused both of, according to the paper, failing "to implement any rules prohibiting sexual harassment and retaliation."
"When the university first became aware of the complaints by students and families about the environment and behavior of coaches in the baseball program, the USF Office of Human Resources immediately conducted an internal investigation that led to the firing of Troy Nakamura and official reprimand of Nino Giarratano," Joan McDermott, Director of Athletics at USF, said in a release. "The new allegations in the lawsuit as well as Giarratano's recent behavior in allowing Nakamura access to baseball operations is extremely concerning. As a result, we have taken actions to make changes in baseball program leadership."
“The safety and well-being of our students is USF's highest priority," USF president Rev. Paul J. Fitzgerald, S.J. said "We apologize to current and former students who have been affected. We have reopened our internal investigation, and encourage anyone with information to share their experiences with the Title IX office or to the anonymous whistleblower hotline."
Giarratano was hired as head coach of USF in 1999 and is the school's all-time winningest baseball coach. Pitching coach Matt Keplinger will now serve as the team's interim coach.
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