SafeSport Failure - Alleged Rapist Allowed to Time Largest National HS Meets

This is such a great thread. Thanks so much, Nick!

Dan is not the founder -- it's David.

Also SDSU punter Matt Araiza and others accused of rape, when the HS student lied about being 18 and was out to "have sex with as many men as she could" according to her friends, video

weird side to take

You should re-read without your This Sucks glasses on. You can give a kid a ride. You Should try to find an alternative, but if absolutely necessary, you Can give a kid a ride with parent's permission.

Thank you for the link. Oh my God. This is awful. The victim was between 4 and 7 years old and the 5 offenses occurred between Jan. 1, 2021-Dec. 31, 2023.

Your own sentence contradicts itself. It does not absolutely forbids you from giving a ride to kids; it strongly discourages you from doing so with only a single kid on your own. So, yes, one on one, non-observable interactions are strongly discouraged.

I mean, did you even read stuff? Or take a grumpy-old-coach view that people are telling you that you cannot do whatever you want.

@polevaultpower. everything TexasHorn said was true based on court documents. Why should it be sugar-coated? He laid out exactly how disgusting an individual Dan Bowdoin is. Quit covering for your perv friend.

he literally filed a court document (linked in the FOS article0 stating the case started when HE CALLED DHS AND SELF REPORTED. Stop protecting him, mods. this is absolutely atrocious and needs to be brought to light.

documentcloud.org

Declaration - Bowdoin

Open link

The article and statements from RS and USATF create a lot more questions that hopefully will get answers.

RS points to 2025, letting them not address that he timed Nike XC Nationals in December 2024. The also say there were no minors as participants in the meets he worked in 2025. Either they have checked every birthdate of each entry or they are guessing. There can be minors competing at college track meets (as collegians or via high school/club races at those meets). There also are minors present in attendance at meets. Their mentioning minors in their statement indicates they knew at least some details of the charges.

Dan's brother remained the CEO of Athletic.Net after they were acquired by Runnerspace in 2015 and at some point he became the Chief Product Officer of Athletic, which according to their website includes Athletic, AthleticNET, AthleticTV, AthleticLIVE, RunnerSpace, Dyestat, Coaches Choice and Athletic Timing. It is a reasonable assumption to think that an officer of the company knew what was happening and did not report it.

Based on the FoS article, it seems like Athletic is trying to separate Dan to being only involved in limited parts of the company while he was involved with many of the integrated parts of the company - from timing to live results to registration to USTFCCCA rankings to videos to new products to training. His title was COO of Athletic.

Athletic's relationship with Oregon University and Tracktown gave Dan access to Hayward whenever he wanted. Over the years he was a regular presence at Hayward track meets, including the 2025 US Championships. Perhaps not officially credentialed, but he was seen in meet operations areas and the infield. Athletic also timed the 2024 NSAF Nike Nationals - where he would have been there for the integrated USATF U20 track meet - putting into question the statement that he wasn't part of USATF event since 2023. Oregon is trying to defer all questions to Athletic while they have a substantial relationship with Athletic and familiarity with Dan.

Assuming their statement is true, also in need of questioning is what did Athletic do upon learning of the charges for almost 2 weeks before the story became public. Did they report Dan to USATF or SafeSport or did they sit quietly hoping no one would find out. The FoS story makes it seem that no external parties were aware of anything until this thread was public.

Dan's declaration, where he admits his guilt, also says he would be chaperoned at meets he worked. Did no one from Athletic find it odd that a mental health therapist or friend was with him while working or that he wasn't attending major events anymore or removing himself from his typical everyday duties? Is ignorance a valid excuse to have had child rapist running operations for the company and attending meets with student populations involved.

Clearly the court knew what he did, that he had admitted guilt and that what he did for a living put him around young girls and young women. How did that not warrant notifications to the employer or the meets he was associated with?

Lots of things seem to have been handled poorly with this horrendous case. People need to be confident that steps are being taken to hold organizations/people accountable if warranted and also prevent something like this from happening again.

His statements were not entirely factual, he made assumptions about what happened based on the charges and that didn't match what was in the more detailed court documents.

IMO the graphic details of the sexual abuse of a young child don't need to be spelled out in a forum like this, the charging documents are linked and people can read them if they wish. It's weird that some of you (or maybe it's just one of you) insists on repeatedly posting them when the mods told you no.

That's not normal.

This this this.

If we give Ross the benefit of the doubt, that he had no idea about any of this until October 18, it does not appear he reported it to USATF, or if he did so, it was not until weeks later.

Runnerspace and all of its entities are not just random contractors who sometimes work USATF events, they have multiple ongoing contracts and have for many years.

Ross, and anyone else who became aware at that point, should have known that they were required to immediately report this to USATF. Failure to report is a violation of the SafeSport Code.

kind of did since folks like yourself were not getting it...were not willing to to look at any of the public court docs..so ya it was needed.

too many disciples of that organization.

Ross's response was a joke too. all about him knowing nothing.. not even a mention of how horrific this is. Just that the "employee" was terminated.. Dan was his right hand man!

In the court of law, ideally, yes, that is civics 101

In the private world, when you’ve been charged with numerous heinous crimes, one of them sodomy (in modern legal context this means the victim was not capable of granting consent) society ought to limit your access to children. And should you be found not guilty, your former life can then be restored.

Becca - these details absolutely need to be spelled out. This is a hard pill to swallow but there are absolutely dozens of other offenders in T&F, Swimming, Gymnastics that are currently getting away with this type of stuff as I type. We see these people weekly at track meets. The oddball official that has never had a girlfriend and still lives with his parents at 55 years old (I can name several of those if you want). Although Dan didn’t match that description, these weirdos are still out there and we should all have an eye on them.

Sweeping this stuff under the rug does our sport no good. You can’t scream to release the Epstein files but then say not to discuss this topic just because you are friends with Dan.

I don't think I have spoken to Dan in over a decade, don't think I ever met him IRL. I worked on a project with athletic.net 15+ years ago and had not kept in touch. I believe I was Facebook friends with him (which he has since deactivated).

Does Safesport allow me to upload a csv of people who are weird in our sport? Entering one by one will take way too long.

this org needs to be disbanded asap.

due to completely unlawful processes incompetence ccorruption graft you name it

look under the rock and see for yourself.

Sounds like that is lock step with the current administration - its own version of DEI (which ends with incompetence). So nothing new to see here.