Former San Jose Point out gymnasts protect previous mentor in opposition to verbal abuse accusations

SAN JOSE — Two months just after a former San Jose Point out gymnast arrived ahead with allegations of debilitating verbal abuse by her previous head mentor – and uncovered a 2018 university-led investigation that pressured his retirement – dozens of previous gymnasts and their parents are coming to his side contacting him a “bedrock” of the system.

In a “statement of support” for previous head Coach Wayne Wright, who was accused of instilling a tradition of anxiety among group associates and calling them “slut” and “stupid,” his supporters reported that Wright is “a individual of seem character and integrity.” Wright retired in 2018 following inner investigators interviewed 25 former and present gymnasts, together with team customers, but the university wished him effectively on his departure with no mentioning its conclusions that “confirm a coaching design and style of verbal abuse and intimidation.”

“My 1st response was, that is not in Wayne’s character,” mentioned Hawley Almstedt, who realized Wright when he was 1st an assistant coach at San Jose Point out more than 20 several years back. “It breaks my coronary heart to read about someone else owning these a awful encounter when I had such a good a person.”

Former gymnast Amy LeClair, who is now 28, had instructed her tale of verbal abuse at the hands of Wright to the Bay Area News Group earlier this month after the university continued to laud Wright on social media and mention him in a fundraising appeal.

Wright’s departure came a yr ahead of the university reopened an investigation into previous head athletic coach Scott Shaw, who had been authorized to proceed functioning at the faculty for a lot more than a ten years immediately after 17 female swimmers came ahead in 2009 with allegations of sexual assault. LeClair also accused Shaw of sexual abuse and settled previously this thirty day period with the college. San Jose State has paid out extra than $5 million to settle promises from extra than two dozen victims of Shaw. He has pleaded not guilty to federal criminal expenses stemming from those people accusations.

LeClair claimed she is heartbroken that other gymnasts signed a letter supporting Wright, but in some approaches is not astonished for the reason that Wright performed favorites.

“There ended up ladies who were being in the spotlight and then there were being the underdogs,” LeClair stated Friday. “I’m below for the underdogs, to give them a voice due to the fact Wayne has designed them truly feel little and worried.”

On Friday, a amount of those people “underdogs” came ahead for the to start with time to aid LeClair and also share their stories of bullying by Wright. Patricia Aubel, a previous SJSU gymnast, reported she participated in the 2018 investigation but explained it was not straightforward to come ahead.

“I’ve talked to ladies who are on the workforce at the identical time as me and like 10 several years later, it however impacts them and they are not eager to chat about their working experience simply because they have been fearful he’s going to locate out,” Aubel reported. “That just demonstrates me like how robust of command he even has over their life now.”

Responding to a ask for for comment, Wright wrote in a text Friday that he appreciates the letter of help and “I understand and regard that everyone experienced their own specific encounters and would like nothing but the greatest to all athletes.”

He didn’t straight deal with the accusations from him.

Almstedt, who wrote the supportive letter and despatched it to other former gymnasts and mom and dad to indicator, claimed that Wright experienced identified as her right after the tale about LeClair’s accusations ran. Despite the fact that Wright did not specifically check with her to generate the letter, Almstedt claimed, “I believe he was hopeful that somebody would.” She presented to do so, and drafted the letter saying that Wright “genuinely cared for us and appeared out for our properly-being” and “not one of us can consider of this gymnastics household without a feeling of appreciation for Wayne Wright.”

In a few of times, she stated, 60 individuals experienced signed, which include parents and a previous athletic trainer.

Katie Jo Merritt, who competed at SJSU right until 2011 and grew up competing in gymnastics with LeClair, was one particular of them. When the tale broke, it was Wright she referred to as “just to make sure that he was Ok with all the things.”

“It’s a competitive collegiate sport. It’s not supposed to be a social gathering each and every day,” she claimed. At the very same time, “I do not discredit what they have to say because which is what they lived. That is their real truth.”

She signed the letter, she said, “because that is not what took place to me.”

LeClair’s individual account of bullying and belittling by Wright during her several years at San Jose State was bolstered by the 2018 in-dwelling investigation that concluded that Wright experienced pitted teammates towards just about every other and “utilized entire body-shaming as a approach of applying command over the staff users,” the report discovered.

Wright was in a position to finish the year prior to retiring in July 2018 with an settlement with the university “not to find or acknowledge employment, or volunteer at SJSU, or any of its affiliated auxiliary companies.”

To LeClair’s twin sister, who was also on the gymnastics group, the letter of assist from just one group of gymnasts exhibits that Wright continues to exert regulate in excess of the girls he coached and, in the stop, is nevertheless pitting them in opposition to just about every other.

“It does not surprise me that he uncovered his favorites and that they signed a letter for him,” Allison Falat mentioned. “When you were on the group, you would do just about anything to be in his good graces.”

Which is not how Wright’s supporters see it. Wright “respected his gymnasts of all qualities and mentored them beyond purely coaching,” they wrote.

“We could not be far more grateful.”