Allegations of Coach-Athlete Sex, Rape, and Doping Rock Huntington University Track & Field Program

Nick Johnson scandal gets grimmer thanks to David Woods’ expose in Indy Star 

By Robert Johnson
October 5, 2022

More allegations emerged today regarding the track & field scandal at Huntington University and ex-coach Nick Johnson, and they are disturbing. David Woods has written an excellent piece for the Indy Star that you can read here (it’s behind a paywall but only costs $1 to access): Christian college coach created a culture of doping and sex, star runners allege.

The newest allegations come from Woods’ reporting as well as a lawsuit filed by attorney Jon Little on behalf of two former NAIA champions for Huntington, Emma Wilson and Hannah Stoffel. Wilson and Stoffel both allege Johnson gave them unknown injections which they fear were performance-enhancing drugs and they are asking that their national titles be invalidated.

If the PED allegations aren’t disturbing enough, Stoffel alleges in her lawsuit that Johnson also slept with her and raped her. After being read his Miranda rights, police reports indicate that Johnson admitted to having slept with Stoffel as well as another Huntington athlete.

According to the police report (see page 24), Nick’s wife Lauren Johnson, who was a Huntington assistant coach at the time, admitted to police she knew Nick had had sex with two athletes but didn’t tell anyone at Huntington “because she knew both her and Nick would lose their jobs at HU.” Lauren, a former runner for Oregon Track Club Elite and the Boston Athletic Association who represented the US in the 1500 at the 2015 World Championships, was promoted to head coach at Huntington following her husband’s arrest in December 2020 and is still the coach today.

Previously, it was known that Nick Johnson, the former Oregon Track Club assistant, had pled guilty to felony identity deception in 2021 and served 30 days of a two-year sentence. In that case, Johnson sent a series of emails to a teen recruit and her mom posing as a University of Oregon track staffer asking her to come to Oregon for an unofficial recruiting visit. In fact, the whole thing was just a ruse to get the teen to go on a trip with him across state lines. 

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According to the police report, the police determined from hotel and cell phone records that Johnson took the teen recruit to Oregon where they shared a single king bed on multiple nights. The recruit told police Johnson fingered her, that they grinded on top of each other nude, that they showered nude together, and that he kissed her vagina. Nick Johnson told a different story but admitted they grinded in Oregon, and that on more than one occasion they kissed and that his repeated chest release maneuvers on the victim crossed the line of normal treatment and were sexual in nature.

For the record, I spoke to the former recruit, who is now on the team about Huntington, about the case. She told me she didn’t consider herself to be a victim. She told me she just told the police what they wanted to hear and claimed it was false and she could sue them.

When the Oregon staffer was contacted by the police to confirm, she confirmed her identity had been stolen and that she didn’t send any emails to the recruit. The police report states the Oregon staffer then added that she believed “Mr. Johnson and his wife had an investigation done with regards to doping in the sport of track and field and believed they were either fired or fined by the anti-doping agency as a result of the investigation” and that “it is her understanding that this investigation led to Mr. Johnson no longer being part of the Oregon Track Club Elite group.”

We highly recommend you read David Woods’ article. It costs $1 to join IndyStar.com. There is a shorter summary of the article here.

More:

You can read the full police report here:

https://www.letsrun.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/full-police-report.pdf

You can read the charging documents here: 

https://www.letsrun.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/N-Johnson-Charging-Documents.pdf

You can read the lawsuit here:

https://www.letsrun.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Huntington-Lawsuit-Nick-Johnson.pdf

Talk about this article on the messageboard. MB: Coach-athlete sex, rape and PEDs at Huntington University? Nick Johnson scandal gets grimmer thanks to David Woods expose in Indy Star .

If you have info on the case you’d like to share, please email me at Robert@letsrun.com or call or text us at 844-538-7786.

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