Coach-athlete sex, rape and PEDs at Huntington University? Nick Johnson scandal gets grimmer thanks to David Woods expose

I saw Addy Wiley won the race today in 16:57. Is that a PR for her ?

A large improvement from her 17:26 at Louisville. Her best 5k last year was 18:10. Sorry but this kind of improvement is very suspect and anything she does from this point on will be questioned. This program has a history for doping.

The question is to what extent the athlete was groomed and was an unwitting or unwilling participant in possible doping, and to what extent the athlete was willingly involved. In the athlete's statement decommitting from UC the athlete made clear that she wanted to stay with the Johnsons because she thought this would best serve her goals as a pro runner. We know the history of these coaches and we know the what being a competitive pro running often means. It has gone beyond suspect unfortunately.

I haven’t seen the motion, but it’s plain that Nick is asking the Court to make it so no one can see the files in his court case. The standards that apply to these requests vary wildly from state to state and I know nothing about the law in Indiana. In my state, this motion would never get granted, even without considering the public interest this particular case. In this case, I’m hoping that (a) the judge and/or prosecutor is hip to the public interest in this case, (b) a news outlet files a brief in the case requesting that the case stay public because the fact that it has been public all this time has helped protect people (see, e.g., the lawsuit and the Indy Star story etc that have helped start some change at the school and have relied, in part, on the court records), or (c) a member of the public (perhaps even a local Letsrun reader) heads over to the courthouse and files a letter to the court in this case laying out how it has been critical that the public have access to these files and will likely remain critical in the future.

This is one of those situations where a court case is deciding an issue of public interest that goes beyond the interests of parties to the case, so things sometimes get swept under the rug and it’s important for people to speak up.

Your post will get deleted. I started a similar line, considering the enabler participation of victim one. At first, it got all thumbed down. There was a little conversation and the idea was much more accepted, but then it all got deleted. I understand it and I don't. Reality shouldn't be deleted, she is over 18.

The performance enhancing drug angle in all of this is very interesting, and it should be allowed to stay on the board as 1) it is part of the Rojo's thread title, and 2) it is a significant piece of the lawsuit against the Johnson's, HU, etc.

Assuming that all 3 of the stated victims got sup'd up to the gills on drugs, it might provide a little more insight to how much the drugs can possibly help the sub-elite. If, let's say, drugs can help a 2:05 marathoner get down to 2:03, that's obviously a gigantic improvement, but most people would figure there is no way hardly anyone can run 2:05 anyway, so it isn't THAT much help (in a sense). However, if we're talking about very good, but not insanely fast runners (let's say, 18:30 track 5K women) being aided to where they can run ~17:00 and able to win National (NAIA) cross Championships... or, if it can take a sub 5 min HS female miler down to sub 4:30 (just as an example)... then that degree of performance aid is a lot more than I suspect many previously thought drugs could do. I really have no idea... I am confident a 3:55 Jim Ryun couldn't run a drug-aided 3:35 (lol), but what could the drugs do? In light of the spate of recent Kenyan busts, it makes one wonder? (To be fair, it appears that the two Huntington High School alumni, saw major improvements when running with the Johnson's while the third from Central Indiana was already really good in HS and did not seem to improve as much in college.)

Further the PED injection situation should be more clear, and it seems like this would be easier to crystalize and make some progress. In the lawsuit, it is alleged that Johnson said that he was doing a research study / experiment that was endorsed by Nike and the HU Athletic Director. (Has anyone asked those entities if they recall endorsing an experiment or study with HU?). Members of the team were asked to participate in the study, but would have to sign NDA's. (Has any team member confirmed this? And, if not participating in the study, surely all the other team members heard about the study at that time, correct?). According to the lawsuit, even parents were made aware of the "study". However, in the Woods interview with Dyestat, Woods said that only a couple of runners "at the top" got the injection treatment (and that, in his opinion, the girls shouldn't self-disqualify themselves from their national titles because the drugs were administered so haphazardly they couldn't possibly have helped them). Also, Woods made the curious statement that the injections were given "against their will, really..". Why didn't he just say that the injections were in fact against their will - period - full stop? By putting the "really" at the end, it sounds as if they were kinda sorta maybe against their will. lol

In any event, I find it quite odd that we haven't heard anything more on this aspect of the lawsuit. We've heard nothing from prior acquaintances from Oregon, nothing from any Huntington teammates that suggest that "yeah, that whole study thing was sketchy af", nothing from entities named in the lawsuit... nothing - not a peep! And, the Woods' Dyestat interview does not appear to jibe very well with what the lawsuit alleges either.

Perhaps if someone runs 15:58 and beats Tuohy and Valby by 30 seconds, this will get really interesting. lol

Any updates?

Crossroads League championship is tomorrow morning 10:30 ET. Other than that, I haven't seen any real updates. Looks like Huntington Athletics disabled comments on their twitter page.

CJ Robertson, the assistant coach who was helping Interim Coach Austin Roark after this all went down (a 2019 HU alumni) is now gone. Apparently, he too has been implicated in this mess somehow, or maybe he found another place to move on to. Maybe one of our Huntington runners can elaborate on that. Also, the team's top runner was just recently recognized as the NAIA Runner of the Week for the second time this year.

I am glad that it was mentioned that the League Championships are tomorrow. This is the meet that David Woods said that he planned to attend so that other Huntington victims could find him to come forward to tell their story. Obviously, if other crimes have been committed, those victims very much need to report them to the police.

Somehow the AD is still there dispite repeated scandles under her watch.

I'll copy and paste the text I received from my source at ONU (he gave me permission to post).

"Aquinas (school that hosted the Great Lakes meet) explicitly told HU not to come to the race. They (Aquinas) also informed the other schools competing that they had advised HU to not attend. Because of this, everyone was shocked when they saw the HU bus arrive at the meet. It was so awkward. HU athletes were trying to be friendly, but you could tell people were keeping their distance. The award ceremony was also incredibly weird."

That's basically the last I've heard. League meet is tomorrow.

Side question because I'm too lazy to do the research myself. Do we know of any athletes on the team choosing not to run, or has the whole team been competing at these meets? I'm just really surprised not a single athlete has said "F this" and chose to not compete.

Looking at what I think is their last result? They had two girls under 18 minutes, one girl just over 19 minutes, and one girl just under 20 minutes. I don't know enough about NAIA women's running, but it seems like there are 2, maybe 3 serious runners on this team now, and the rest are on the team for extra-curricular fun.

I do think tomorrow will be interesting, and it seem like the race will be livestreamed:

iscsportsnetwork.com

2022 XC Crossroads League Champ - Full Event 11/4

@iscsportsnet

NAIA Women's and Men's Cross Country from Shelbyville, Indiana

Open link

I'm bumping this as this race is starting in 4 minutes. Looks like it requires a $12.99 payment.

Politically connected.

David Woods is out at IndyStar, I wonder how this will affect the coverage of this story moving forward:

Sorry to hear that the Star let David go. It's a tough road for an independent contributor, but he is a talented writer. So, all the best to him.

Being that this story, in his own words, is the most important story in his 30 years of journalism, it would stand to reason that this development will likely give him more flexibility and self-direction to pursue to the fullest extent. I look forward to seeing this story develop. Did anyone see him at the Crossroads League Meet?