It was more than seven years ago when I found myself in the middle of a story I never wanted to read, let alone report.
In November of 2013, Stony Brook Athletics announced the abrupt and shocking departure of Athletics Director Jim Fiore. Abrupt because it came with no warning, in the middle of the academic year, and at the busiest time for any Athletics department; shocking because by all accounts, Fiore had been a huge part of the Seawolves’ rise in stature and visibility since making the leap to Division I.
There were very few details when the news first broke, and many unanswered questions. Had Fiore taken a higher profile job at a Power 5 program? Was there some internal conflict roiling the Athletics Department? Had Stony Brook decided to rethink their commitment to Division I sports? Nothing, in those first few hours, seemed too farfetched.
Twenty four hours later though, I had begun to put the pieces together. Several current and former athletes and coaches had reached out to me with details of their own interactions with Fiore, some more alarming than others but all centered on the same narrative — for years, he had been abusive towards staff and players on several teams. He was accused of sexually harassing members of coaching staffs, openly questioning the sexual orientation of student athletes, and misappropriating university resources.
As a human being, it’s always hard to learn awful truths about someone you respected and admired. But there’s another, more complicated layer of emotion when you find yourself in a position to make a decision about what to do with those truths. I love Stony Brook Athletics — exposing the truth would sully their reputation, and tarnish the accomplishments of the players who helped build the program into a mid-major power.
But on the other hand, I truly love Stony Brook Athletics — sitting on the truth allows a toxic culture to persist at a slow boil, and creates an environment ripe for future abuses, perhaps ones that will be far worse.
One day after Fiore’s departure was made public, I published the first story about the allegations that led up to it. Several others followed, both on this site and in Newsday, in ESPN, in the New York Post. To its immense credit, Stony Brook acted swiftly and decisively when they were made aware of the myriad allegations, even if it tried to keep the details hidden from view. Years later, they acted just as quickly to suspend or expel others accused of similar crimes, dismissing star basketball players after they were credibly accused of crimes, and a coach who was accused of harassment and mistreatment of her athletes.
For all of its other missteps, I can say with relative confidence that Stony Brook Athletics has done an adequate job taking allegations against its players, coaches, and staff members seriously, even at the expense of on-field performance. (A better job, in fact, than the university itself in many respects).
That stands in stark contrast to the University of Vermont.
Last year, a student athlete at UVM came forward as part of a small group of Division I athletes across the country to demand changes at their institutions, and across the NCAA as a whole. They jointly filed a lawsuit against the NCAA accusing them of failing to adequately protect them from sexual assault, and each of them came forward to accuse their respective athletics departments of mishandling their own cases.
At UVM, the details are particularly galling. A then-sophomore student athlete on the program’s swimming and diving team alleges that she was raped by a star player for Vermont’s men’s basketball team. She brought the allegations to the program’s Title IX coordinator, who proceeded to mislead or outright lie to her about her options. After informing the program that she wanted to pursue a formal investigation — which would include game suspensions and mandatory counseling — she was pressured into rethinking her decision. Among the conversations she had about her decision was one with Athletics Director Jeff Schulman himself, who met with the student at halftime of a men’s hockey game.
After being reassured that an informal investigation could still result in disciplinary actions against her accused rapist, she was told that the program could not impose any suspensions because it “wouldn’t be fair to other players” and it “would have a negative impact on the community” who attended games expecting to see [him] play.
In other words, UVM Athletics decided it would rather protect an accused rapist than his victim, because he was a key starter for the team and was a big draw for fans.
The player in question has not been formally named in any lawsuit, or by the victim herself. But among fans on campus and in the community, and within the Department of Athletics itself, there’s only one name ever associated with the allegations: Anthony Lamb, the former America East Player of the Year and best player in the conference since Jameel Warney. He graduated last year, before the allegations became public. He was in the middle of his senior year when his accuser came forward.
The problem, though, is not about any single player. We have a legal system to adjudicate such matters, although too often these cases never even get that far. In our original reporting on the Fiore situation, lawyers complained to every publication who covered his saga — this one included — that he was never publicly identified in any formal complaint. Never mind that his victims were specifically encouraged to pursue informal routes instead, for reasons of expediency and peace. Sound familiar?
No, the problem is about the subsequent inaction in the face of credible allegations, and the firm belief that any wrongdoing can be swept under the rug, to be forgotten and never discussed again.
For its part, UVM has refused to acknowledge any of this, while also failing to deny any of the accusations laid out by their own student athlete who, unlike her accused attacker, is still enrolled and still competes for the school. They have declined to provide any documents related to the allegations to reporters — as a public entity, it’s unclear how long they will be legally allowed to shield documents from a FOIA request — and they continue to deny they’ve done anything wrong. Several other female athletes have come forward to demand the resignations of AD Schulman and others involved in the whole sordid affair, and perhaps the only reason there hasn’t been further outrage yet is because this has all unfolded in the middle of a global pandemic.
For now though, thanks to UVM’s refusal to take any accountability and pursue any action, the story continues to sit atop a low flame. It might take a while, but eventually it will boil over, and we will witness inevitable result of what happens when a program thinks it can get away with a scandal scotch free.
I’ve been putting off writing anything about this for months. I worried about the optics of a fan of a rival program using a sexual assault allegation as some kind of cudgel. But the last straw for me was a tweet from UVM Athletics earlier today.
Anthony Lamb is long gone. Even if they continue to deny any wrongdoing, it would have been so easy to simply ignore him moving forward. Instead, they are going out of their way to celebrate him, from a university account, even while his alleged rape victim remains a student on campus.
Correction, 5:13pm: Though I thought it was clear references to “Vermont” were related to UVM, someone asked us to clarify that this story is in reference to allegations at the University of Vermont specifically.
