It’s the beginning of another school year, which means another round of tuition hikes for UO students. The damage this year is a 6.6 percent increase for in-state students (about $810 per year) and a 3 percent increase for out-of-state (about $945). It was nearly 10.6 percent for in-state students, but a last-minute influx of state support helped mitigate the increase. Tuition has gone up for the fourth straight year and roughly doubled in the past decade.

The Oregon athletic department, meanwhile, continues to thrive. According to its projected 2018 budget, it expects to make $113 million in revenue, up from $110 million last year and $40 million a decade ago. Each year, however, it spends every dollar it brings in. It recently paid to buy former football coach Mark Helfrich and his coaching staff out of their contracts and hire Willie Taggart and 12 new assistant and strength coaches.

Of the $113 million in revenue in 2018, about $5 million will come directly out of UO students’ pockets. Students, through tuition and fees, foot the bill for tutoring and advising services for student-athletes, President Michael Schill’s luxury seats at Autzen Stadium and Matthew Knight Arena, student tickets to football and basketball games and debt service on the basketball arena and parking garage.

Over the summer, the Emerald asked Schill whether he would consider pulling any money from the athletic department budget to mitigate a tuition increase for students. The answer was a resounding no. He said athletics is going through its own budget issues, and that he is “comfortable” with the the current level of subsidy.

“We’re not providing them with additional money to cover their problems across their budget issues, and they’re not providing us with money to take care of the academic budget issues,” Schill said. “Athletics is making its own cuts to deal with their issues comparable to our issues. It’s not like there’s this bundle of money sitting over there that is ready to be tapped for the academic enterprise.””

Athletic department spokesman Jimmy Stanton noted that the athletic department funds roughly $12 million in athletic scholarships and pays the full tuition rate for out-of-state student-athletes, whereas some other schools pay the in-state rate. He said the amount of institutional support the athletic department receives is “among the lowest in the country.” The athletic department also pays UO roughly $3.5 million a year in administrative and gift assessments. (All school operations, including ASUO, are required to pay a set percent of its expenditure base back to UO.)

Chris Sinclair, a UO math professor and the new Senate President, said the Senate this year will not focus on issues related to the athletics budget. Any legislation it passes related to athletics spending would have to be signed by Schill, who is unlikely to do so, Sinclair said. So unlike previous years, he said, the Senate will not waste time discussing problems it can’t fix.

“If we’re identifying a group of students to give special privileges, and we’re using money from the general fund for that, then I think that is a big problem,” Sinclair said. “My ability to make that happen or change the system, however, is severely limited. President Schill has made it clear many times that he doesn’t think that the faculty has any power over decisions that happen in athletics.”

In 2013, the UO Senate — comprised of faculty, staff and student leaders — passed a resolution to end subsidies to the athletic department from the school’s education and general fund, which funds its academic endeavors, but it never led to any policy. In 2015, it passed legislation to tax the athletic department and redirect the funds for academic purposes, but neither interim President Scott Coltrane nor President Schill signed it.

“I think we are in a much more healthy place than many universities are,” said Schill. “Now you have some people out there that say we shouldn’t have Division I athletics. I don’t agree with that. I think the Division I athletics program that we have is a great one. I think it contributes to the student and the alumni experience here and is one of the reasons we get applications and students from all over the world.”

“I don’t care what’s happening anywhere else; we need to make good decisions at our university,” said Nathan Tublitz, a biology professor and former UO Senate President. “If you look at the athletic department’s budget, they can cut absolutely everything. They don’t need the zillion people that they have over there. They don’t need the 10 assistant coaches for football. They don’t need to pay everyone $300,000, which is more than any faculty member on campus — and that’s the assistant coaches. But to pay for faculty salaries, student benefits here on campus, to pay for student services — they can’t do it, because they don’t have the money. It’s a sad state of affairs.”

UO will generate roughly $12.5 million from the tuition increase this year, according to UO.

Here is how $5 million in student money will be spent this year on athletics.

Jaqua Academic Center – $2 million

UO students pay roughly $2 million per year on tutoring and advising services available exclusively to UO’s approximately 450 student-athletes, financial transparency reports show. By comparison, UO spends about the same amount each year on the Teaching and Learning Center in the fourth of the library or basement of PLC, which offers free group tutoring services and paid one-on-one sessions to 20,000 undergraduates. These student-athlete services take place in the Jaqua Academic Center for Student-Athletes, the $42-million, three-story glass cube located on the corner of Agate Street and 13th Avenue that Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike and an Oregon alum, donated to the athletic department in 2010.

As part of the arrangement between Knight and UO, UO agreed to cover the operational costs of the 37,000-square foot building, including staff salaries, maintenance and supplies. That includes 85 paid tutors — up from 40 in the old facility — and a number of amenities for student-athletes, including one-on-one tutoring with a different tutor for each one of their classes. They each get a MacBook computer engraved with a custom Oregon ‘O’ around the Apple logo. According to financial transparency reports, computers cost UO students roughly $125,000 a year, and engraving services cost another $10,000.

Matthew Knight Arena – $502,000

The most expensive on-campus basketball arena in the U.S. costs UO students roughly $502,000 a year in debt service, plus the cost of using the arena for school events. A decade ago, when Knight pledged $100 million to build the $227 million arena, the athletic department scrambled to find funds to buy the land on which to build it, which at the time was owned by a bakery plant. So in 2009, then-athletic director Pat Kilkenny made a deal with then-President Dave Frohnmayer that ultimately left UO students paying roughly a quarter of of the $1.8-million-a-year land debt payment.

The terms of the deal were controversial. Because the athletic department would no longer be using McArthur Court, the old basketball gym, it agreed to give the land back to UO so long as UO paid for a portion of the new arena land debt equal to the ratio of the land area of McArthur Court to the land area of the new arena. McArthur Court, however, was paid for by student fees, so some were outraged that the land did not belong to athletics in the first place.

In addition to land debt service, UO students also pay money to use Matthew Knight Arena. Financial records obtained by the Emerald show UO has paid athletics more than $230,000 in the past three years on expenses on 27 school events at Matthew Knight Arena, including rent, audio/video technology, janitors, ushers and changeover (changing the venue from a basketball facility to accommodate different types of events). Using Matthew Knight Arena for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ lecture in February, for example, cost UO nearly $40,000 — not including the $41,000 in donor money it paid to Coates.

Student Tickets – $1.7 million

UO students pay athletics nearly $1.7 million a year in student fees for tickets to UO sporting events. The amount each year is negotiated by the athletic department with ASUO, UO’s student government. Students currently pay about 75 percent of the tickets’ “fair market value,” as determined by the athletic department. Athletics, however, seeks closer to 80 percent, so annually it asks ASUO to pay more money for the same number of tickets to football and basketball games.

The relationship between ASUO and the athletic department is strained as a result. In 2015, the athletic department pulled 300 tickets out of the student ticket lottery because ASUO refused to pay extra. Fourteen ASUO senators responded by signing a petition demanding athletics stop cutting tickets, and called its actions “greedy and deplorable.” ASUO went three years without paying extra, until last March, when it made a one-time payment of $10,000 to athletics to show the department it “wants to work with” it.

President Schill’s Luxury Seats – $412,000

As part of the 2009 agreement between Frohnmayer and Kilkenny, UO agreed to pay the athletic department $375,000 a year for use of the presidential suite, 80 club level season tickets, eight reserved season tickets and 11 parking spaces at Autzen Stadium. UO also agreed to pay for 20 men’s basketball season tickets and four garage parking passes at Matthew Knight Arena, which amounted to $32,456 last year. The seats are used “for donor engagement and fundraising activities,” according to athletic department spokesman Craig Pintens.

Parking Garage and Parking Revenue – $625,000

Also part of the 2009 agreement, UO agreed to finance a portion of the debt service on the underground parking garage at Matthew Knight Arena and allow athletics to keep the parking revenue generated during games, as well as outside events managed by athletics, such as concerts. This amounts to $521,000 a year for debt service and between $250,000 and $270,000 in lost revenue — minus roughly $150,000 that the athletic department pays the City of Eugene for parking enforcement — during Matthew Knight Arena events.

Critics of the athletic department are not advocating to get rid of the UO athletic program, but for the administration to realign its priorities. The academic side of the university is struggling, they say, while the athletic department is already rich.

“We’re not saying you need to completely get rid of the other one; we’re just saying you need to rebalance your priorities,” Tublitz said. “Is it more important to make sure a student is successful academically or that our teams do better athletically?”

President Schill, however, says the athletic department has financial issues of its own and that he is “happy” with the current level of institutional support.

“What I like about our athletic enterprise is that we have this practice where we don’t subsidize them very much and we’re not taking money from them,” Schill said. “When (Athletic Director) Rob Mullens does his budget, he knows not to look to me fill any holes, which I’d say is better than most of the units on the academic side. I think that both sides of the house have missions that they need to achieve, and they have the same financial problems we have.”

Follow Kenny Jacoby on Twitter @kennyjacoby . 

The post How UO students spend $5 million a year on athletics appeared first on Emerald Media.

UPDATE 2:22 p.m.: This article has been updated with details of Carrington’s arrest and updated charges.

Oregon wide receiver Darren Carrington was arrested by Eugene police early Saturday morning on misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence of intoxicants, careless driving and an improper right turn. Head coach Willie Taggart has suspended him from the team indefinitely.

Darren Carrington was arrested on a misdemeanor DUI charge early July 1, 2017. (Lane County Jail)

Carrington, 22, was arrested at 3:15 a.m. after crashing his Honda Accord into a pole at the McDonalds drive-through on East Broadway and driving away, according to Eugene police spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin. A call to police was made regarding a possibly intoxicated driver, and an officer observed the vehicle make an improper right turn out of the McDonald’s parking lot. He pulled Carrington over at the intersection of 8th Avenue and Mill Street.

The officer suspected impairment and arrested Carrington for DUII and two other moving violations.

Carrington was booked in Lane County Jail in Eugene at 5:28 a.m. He is scheduled to appear in Eugene Municipal Court for the DUI case on July 21 at 1 p.m.

The 6-foot-2, 186-pound San Diego-native announced in January that he would return to the Ducks to play his senior season under Taggart.

“The University of Oregon has indefinitely suspended student-athlete Darren Carrington from all football team activities after his arrest last night by the Eugene Police Department on a charge of Driving Under the Influence,” Taggart said in a statement. “We are continuing to gather the facts in this matter.”

Carrington had been previously suspended for the Ducks’ national championship game versus Ohio State in January 2015 after testing positive for marijuana on an NCAA-administered drug test.

Carrington has had several run-ins with law enforcement during his time in Eugene.

In October 2016, Carrington was accused of pushing a former UO student to the ground and breaking his arm. The former student, Mike Holland, said Carrington yelled out his name, position, jersey number and hometown after pushing him into the street. Holland went to the hospital for treatment. He said the case was referred to the Lane County District Attorney’s office in November and remains open, but that it “seems to be dead in the water.” He said a detective told him that Eugene police stopped investigating after “Carrington and a few witnesses came forward and corroborated an alibi saying he wasn’t there.”

In September 2015, Eugene police issued Carrington a citation for an open container of alcohol in the early morning after Oregon’s loss to Utah in its Pac-12 opener. According to the police report, he told the arresting officer he did not have a residence and was staying with friends. The officer noted he believed Carrington was being dishonest, and that he had lied about his middle name on a police report from 2013.

In April 2014, Carrington was one of five Oregon football players —  Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, Dominique Harrison, Oshay Dunmore, Rahim Cassell and Carrington — accused of attempting to steal a UO student’s bike. The student had parked her bike in front of the Dunn Hall dormitory and gone upstairs to retrieve her bike lock. When she returned, she observed a black male adult walking away with her bike and a group of four others laughing. When UOPD arrived on scene, the officer was unable to identify which person in the group took the bike and did not file any charges. The officer referred the case to athletic department professional development coordinator Tom Hart for conduct issues.

In July 2013, a Eugene police officer was dispatched to the apartment where Carrington lived with three other football players — Tyrell Robinson, Tyree Robinson and Chris Seisay — to investigate “a possible sexual assault,” according to a police report. A female UO student told a Eugene police officer that Tyrell Robinson had pressured her into having sex with his brother, Tyree Robinson, and that she was “extremely uncomfortable” and did not do it. She told the officer that all four men were laughing at her and mocking her. Tyree Robinson slapped her on the backside against her will as she tried to leave. The police officer interviewed all four men. Tyrell and Tyree Robinson told him that the woman refused to leave their apartment, and Tyree said he slapped her backside to get her to leave. The officer wrote Tyree Robinson a citation for physical harassment and filed no other charges. The female student declined to comment when the Emerald contacted her about the incident.

UO athletic department did not respond to the Emerald for a comment from Carrington.

Gus Morris contributed reporting to this story.

Follow Kenny Jacoby on Twitter @kennyjacoby 

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Former Oregon forward Kavell Bigby-Williams played the 2016-17 men’s basketball season while under criminal investigation for an alleged sexual assault, the Emerald has learned.

Bigby-Williams, a junior, is accused of sexually assaulting a female between 10 p.m Sept. 17 and 3 a.m. Sept. 18, 2016, at an apartment near Gillette College, a Northern Wyoming Community College District (NWCCD) school. NWCCD campus police have been investigating Bigby-Williams in Gillette, Wyoming, since Sept. 19.

Bigby-Williams, 21, was a student and basketball player at Gillette College before he transferred to University of Oregon in 2016. He played the most recent college basketball season under head coach Dana Altman and helped take the Ducks to the Final Four. On June 20, he announced his decision to transfer from Oregon to Louisiana State University.

The allegation comes to light three years after a female UO student accused three Oregon basketball players of rape in March 2014. Altman and UO officials came under fire after it was revealed in May 2014 that the players competed for Oregon in the NCAA Tournament while they were under criminal investigation.

Oregon Ducks forward Kavell Bigby-Williams (35) and Oregon State Beavers forward Drew Eubanks (12) reach for the ball. The No. 13 Oregon Ducks play the Oregon State Beavers in the 347th Civil War at Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, Ore. on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2016.

University of Oregon police have known about the case involving Bigby-Williams since Sept. 28 — two days after the fall 2016 academic term began — public records show. A UOPD report obtained by the Emerald shows UOPD detective Kathy Flynn attempted to interview Bigby-Williams about the incident twice, but Bigby-Williams avoided speaking to Flynn.

After Flynn’s two failed attempts to interview Bigby-Williams by phone, Bigby-Williams’ attorney, Nick Carter, called Flynn asking her not to contact his client anymore. UOPD informed NWCCD police, and NWCCD police never requested further assistance, UOPD spokesman Kelly McIver said.

Altman, athletic director Rob Mullens, and other athletic department staffers were aware UOPD requested Bigby-Williams’ contact information, but nobody asked why UOPD wanted to speak to him or the nature of the case, athletic department spokesman Greg Walker said.

Carter — an assistant basketball coach at Gillette College and Bigby-Williams’ former coach — said in June that Bigby-Williams is no longer his client, and he was unsure whether the investigation was current. Carter acknowledged the case was an alleged sexual assault, but said the last time he heard from NWCCD police about the case was roughly the same time he asked UOPD not to contact his client anymore on Sept. 29.

Bigby-Williams declined to comment on this story via Carter and did not respond to a direct message on Twitter requesting comment. Carter declined to comment further.

NWCCD police could not provide any details to the Emerald about Bigby-Williams’ case. NWCCD police spokeswoman Wendy Smith said the agency is unable to release any information about open investigations, but that the police report would have been made available if the case was closed.

McIver said it is UOPD policy to notify Title IX and the Office of the Dean of Students when it learns of an alleged sexual assault case involving a student. Title IX convenes a risk assessment team to immediately consider emergency action such as temporary suspension or removal from on-campus housing.

If the person accused of sexual assault is a student-athlete, UOPD informs the coach of the allegation only if doing so would not “hamper the investigation,” McIver said. The Title IX risk assessment team, however, would include an athletic department representative “when appropriate, such as when there will be an emergency action taken,” according to McIver.

McIver said UO will not provide specific information about whether UOPD informed Title IX and the Office of the Dean of Students in this case because the information would be protected under student privacy law.

UO President Michael Schill did not know about the sexual assault allegation involving Bigby-Williams and declined to share his thoughts on it.

“I don’t have any awareness of that,” Schill said. “In any event, I can’t comment on an individual student. What if I was asked by another reporter about you being obnoxious? Would you want me to tell them that?”

The alleged victim’s name on the UOPD report was redacted because the case is a sexual assault, UOPD records specialist Mark Matteson said. UOPD does not release the alleged victim’s name in such cases, but the report notes she is a white female unaffiliated with UO.

According to the report, NWCCD police asked UOPD detective Flynn to conduct a follow-up interview with Bigby-Williams on Sept. 28. Flynn reviewed the police report, text messages and photos from NWCCD police’s case and called Bigby-Williams on his cell phone at 2 p.m. Bigby-Williams answered and told Flynn he was busy and would call back the next day.

At 11:30 a.m. Sept. 29, Bigby-Williams had not called back, so Flynn called again. Bigby-Williams did not answer, and Flynn left a voicemail.

A half-hour later, Carter called Flynn requesting she not call Bigby-Williams.

That was the last interaction UOPD had with Bigby-Williams. McIver said UOPD provided the information to NWCCD police, “which did not request any additional assistance,” and added that police can’t legally question someone who refuses to be interviewed and has asked for legal representation.

Walker said Altman and Mullens knew UOPD requested Bigby-Williams’ contact information, but that no one at the athletic department knew he was accused of sexual assault.

The Emerald requested to learn the outcome of any disciplinary proceeding involving Bigby-Williams for a violation of the student conduct code, but the request yielded no responsive records from UO. It is UO policy, however, not to disclose the outcome of a student conduct investigation if the accused student is found responsible for sexual misconduct.

“In consultation with our victim’s rights advocates and Title IX coordinator, we have determined that the privacy rights of survivors of sexual misconduct and the need to encourage reporting in such cases means that we are not going to release information relating to sexual misconduct cases in student conduct proceedings as a general rule,” UO general counsel Kevin Reed said via email.

According to Bigby-Williams’ Twitter account, he was in Wyoming on Sept. 19, the day after the alleged sexual assault occurred. He returned to Eugene for fall term, which started Sept. 26.

Was nice going back to Gillette seeing people, good luck to y'all this season go get another region 9 🏆

— Kavell Bigby-W (@Kavell6ft11) September 19, 2016

Bigby-Williams committed to play for Oregon in April 2016. At 6-foot-10, 223 pounds, he was rated the No. 3 junior college prospect in the country and named the 2015-16 Spalding National Junior College Athletic Association Division I player of the year.

Bigby-Williams played 37 games for Oregon this season, averaging 9.8 minutes and 3.0 points. He played increased minutes off the bench during the Ducks’ run to the NCAA Tournament Final Four, after center Chris Boucher went down with an injury.

He recently asked for and was granted a release to explore a transfer to another school. On June 20, Bigby-Williams committed to transfer to LSU.

🐯🐯 pic.twitter.com/GcByIUr9B9

— Kavell Bigby-W (@Kavell6ft11) June 20, 2017

Altman was heavily scrutinized three years ago after news broke in May 2014 that three Oregon basketball players — Dominic Artis, Damyean Dotson and Brandon Austin — played for the Ducks in the NCAA Tournament while they were under investigation for a March 2014 alleged sexual assault of a female student.

Altman was also criticized for recruiting Austin to play for Oregon after police investigated him for a separate alleged sexual assault at his former college, Providence University. No criminal charges were brought against Austin, but he was suspended from the Providence basketball team for a season.

The Lane County District Attorney’s office dismissed the charges against the three Oregon players in April 2014, writing, “while there is no doubt the incidents occurred, the conflicting statements and actions by the victim make this case unprovable as a criminal case.”

Altman told reporters during a press conference in May 2014 that he knew an “incident” was being investigated in March but didn’t know the nature of it or which of his players were involved.

The alleged victim in the case sued UO and Altman in January 2015, alleging Altman knew Austin was accused of sexual assault when he recruited him. The lawsuit also alleged UO did not immediately discipline the players because doing so would have adversely affected the basketball team’s performance. She settled with UO for $800,000 and free tuition in August 2015.

The three former players filed a lawsuit against UO and four administrators in March 2016, alleging among other things that UO’s investigation of the players was biased and that the accusations cost them future income. That suit is ongoing.

President Schill says there is no easy answer to whether a student-athlete should be allowed to play sports while under criminal investigation.

“The fact that someone is under investigation doesn’t mean that they’re guilty, and to be penalizing somebody just because we’re looking into something doesn’t mean that you should take away their rights,” Schill said. “Every case is going to be different, and obviously the most important thing from my point of view as president — and I think yours as a student — is first and foremost to make sure that the students and the faculty and all members of our community are safe.”

The UOPD report is linked here.

Follow Kenny Jacoby on Twitter @kennyjacoby

The post Former Oregon basketball player Kavell Bigby-Williams is under investigation for sexual assault appeared first on Emerald Media.

While University of Oregon students protested against a 10.6 percent proposed tuition hike in March, the Associated Students of University of Oregon (ASUO) voted to transfer $10,000 to the UO athletic department.

ASUO’s hope was that the one-time payment would help improve its relationship with the athletic department — which brings in $110 million a year — and dissuade it from pulling out of the agreement that provides students with tickets to football and men’s basketball games.

It was a gamble that came with little assurance of paying off and gave students nothing concrete in return.

ASUO currently spends about $1.7 million per year — more than 10 percent of the “incidental fee” budget it controls — on athletic tickets. Under the agreement, the athletic department sells ASUO tickets to home Ducks football and men’s basketball games for about 75 percent of their “fair market value,” as determined by athletics.

But athletics seeks to receive closer to 80 percent of the tickets’ fair market value — a benchmark informally agreed upon by athletics and past ASUO leadership — so annually it asks students to pay more money for the same number of tickets.

For the past three years, ASUO has refused to pay any extra without getting additional tickets in return.

The relationship between the two sides is strained. Athletics at one point took away 300 student football tickets because ASUO refused to pay a 3-percent increase for the same number of tickets. Fourteen ASUO senators then signed a petition demanding athletics stop cutting tickets and calling its actions “greedy and deplorable.”

This year, growing increasingly frustrated with students’ refusal to pay extra, the athletic department considered discontinuing its agreement with ASUO altogether. If that were to happen, athletics could either attempt to sell tickets directly to students who could afford them or seek to establish a new “athletics fee” through the Tuition and Fees Advisory Board (TFAB).

Realizing the danger of losing the agreement, a series of ASUO governing bodies decided to pay athletics $10,000 in an effort to keep the peace and show ASUO “wants to worth with” athletics, former ASUO President Quinn Haaga said.

Quinn Haaga of the ‘I’m With UO’ slate was the ASUO president for the 2016-2017 school year (Cole Elsasser/Emerald).

“The ASUO wants to have as positive a relationship with athletics as possible,” said Haaga, who left office on May 24. “I think a lot of students would agree that it’s one of the most key things ASUO funds, and we wouldn’t want athletics to break off and create their own fee.”

Still, there is no guarantee the $10,000 payment to athletics will accomplish anything. Nothing prevents the athletic department from abandoning the non-binding agreement.

Keegan Williams-Thomas, chair of ASUO’s Athletic and Contracts Finance Committee, which negotiates the ticket agreement with athletics, said the payment was a gesture recognizing that the agreement amount had not been adjusted in several years and “a way to maintain the relationship without escalating costs directly.”

Even after the payment, though, Williams-Thomas is uncertain whether athletics was pleased with the payment amount and whether it will exit the agreement in the near future. The athletic department, after all, asked ASUO this year to pay a 4-percent increase, or about $40,000, and ASUO ended up paying $10,000.

“I have no reason to believe they would be displeased, but I can’t give you a gut-pull quote about how many high-fives there were,” Williams-Thomas said. “They weren’t unpleased, certainly.”

Eric Roedl, the athletic department’s chief financial officer who negotiates the agreement with ASUO, said via email that the athletic department appreciates ASUO’s effort.

“We appreciate this effort from ASUO given the student ticket agreement will remain flat for the fourth consecutive year in 2017-18,” Roedl said. “Student engagement at athletic events is important to us and makes the college athletics environment unique.”

Roedl, however, said the athletic department will likely ask students for more money next year anyway.

The cost of a ‘championship experience’

ASUO’s agreement with athletics dictates the amount of money students spend on sports tickets. Under the current agreement, $71 of each student’s mandatory incidental fee goes toward sports tickets, whether or not the student chooses to attend games.

Those 23,634 students are then left to fight over 3,948 tickets to home conference football games, 1,849 tickets to home nonconference football games and 1,854 tickets to home men’s basketball games. Those are distributed via a first-come-first-served online “lottery” system; but tickets often run out within seconds after becoming available.

The agreement also includes admission to Oregon’s 16 other varsity teams’ sporting events, which aren’t in high enough demand to necessitate the use of the lottery system.

On average, ASUO pays about $215,000 per home football game and $25,000 per home men’s basketball game. That amounts to $66.26 per football ticket and $13.62 per ticket to men’s basketball games.

Last year’s Stanford and Washington football games — which the Ducks lost by a combined 74 points — cost students more than $670,000 alone.

Two-thousand one-hundred students pay an additional $252 to $314 for season-ticket packages, which guarantee them admission to home football games.

In total, students pay $2.3 million for athletic tickets, not including any other tickets students pay for out of their own pockets.

Two students run up the steps after the gates open. The Oregon Ducks hold the annual spring game at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon on Saturday, April 30, 2016. (Kaylee Domzalski/Emerald)

During an interview with the Emerald in March, Roedl said that the cost of operating the Oregon athletic department has grown significantly in recent years, and athletics asks ASUO for more money each year to come closer to meeting its 80-percent benchmark.

“When you look big picture, our objective is to provide a championship experience for our student-athletes and for all of our fans and supporters,” Roedl said. “Certainly the UO student body is part of that, and the cost of fulfilling that championship experience has risen a lot in recent years.”

Roedl said providing a “championship experience” includes marketing efforts such as shoe and apparel giveaways at games.

The athletic department’s overall objective, Roedl said, is “to maximize student attendance and participation in athletics and to keep it as affordable as possible.” But athletics in the past has shown little willingness to ease the financial burden on students.

Two years ago, the athletic department asked ASUO to pay a 10-percent increase for the same number of tickets. When students refused, the athletic department lowered its request to 3 percent and threatened to take tickets away from ASUO’s allotment if students didn’t pay it.

Outraged, 14 ASUO senators, including Haaga, signed a petition urging the athletic department not to cut student tickets. They were “infuriated” and noted that the 3-percent increase the athletic department requested was almost the same amount by which Roedl’s salary had increased that year.

Students refused to pay extra, and the athletic department followed through on its threat. It took 300 seats at Autzen Stadium out of the “lottery” system and sold them back to students individually as season-ticket packages for $300 each.

Students ended up getting those tickets back last year, largely as a result of persistent negotiating with athletics by former ASUO finance director Shawn Stevenson and former ACFC chair Andrew Dunn, who was director of staff under Haaga.

This year, athletics requested another 4-percent increase, even though prices for regular season-ticket holders are decreasing.

“Really the reason behind the 4-percent ask is that we’ve been frozen for so long and we’re trying to just catch up a little bit with the [incidental fee],” Roedl said.

Dunn said each year Roedl and other athletic department officials “come to the table very frustrated that the conversation is the same.” Students want to pay less, but athletic department officials wants them to pay more, so the end result remains unchanged.

“They don’t think about how any sort of change in these fees or tuition will actually impact the students here on our campus,” Dunn said. “Asking students to pay more for their student athletic tickets in a year where tuition is supposed to go up almost 11 percent is a little ridiculous.”

In fact, both tuition costs and athletic department revenues have roughly doubled in the past decade.

Dunn said “there is always concern that students will lose tickets” if they don’t meet the athletic department’s demands.

“They could easily just be like, ‘We’re done.’ That would be a huge blow to student autonomy,” Dunn said. “The fact that we get to control how much we pay for student tickets is crucial in my mind.”

Fans fill up the student section. The Oregon Ducks play the Colorado Buffaloes at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore. on Sept. 24, 2016. (Kaylee Domzalski/Emerald)

The prospect of an athletics fee

If the athletic department pulled out of the agreement and establish its own student athletics fee — something many other schools have in place — then TFAB would have the final say over student ticket costs, as opposed to ASUO.

Haaga said that would be “really dangerous” because TFAB has little student oversight. It is the same committee that approved a 10.6 percent tuition increase for residents and 3-percent increase for non-residents in March despite intense criticism from students.

“There would be virtually no student oversight over that,” Haaga said. “There are only a few students on that committee, and if they don’t know what to be looking for, then I think that the athletics fee could just grow exponentially without a lot of checks and balances.”

According to a Washington Post examination of financial records of 52 public universities in the NCAA’s five wealthiest conferences, students at 32 schools paid a combined $125.5 million in athletics fees in 2014. Those fees were not limited to student tickets to games.

At the time of the Post’s report, Virginia had just increased its student fee from $388 to $657. Florida State students were paying $237 per year, and Maryland students were paying $406. Those three schools combined to make more than $30 million on the backs of students.

Alabama got rid of its student athletics fee a few years ago, as did Missouri.

Roedl said the athletic department has discussed with ASUO possible “alternative processes” for student ticketing and will continue to do so in the future. But he said at this point the athletic department does not plan to exit the agreement.

“We cannot speculate on how the student ticketing process may change in the future; however, at this point in time there are no plans in place to change the process,” Roedl said via email.

Dunn, however, said the athletic department will likely pursue a separate student athletics fee next year. Williams-Thomas wasn’t sure.

“That’s a possibility — that I will say,” Williams-Thomas said, “but I can’t state that there’s any real likelihood necessarily.”

What is more certain is that athletics will most likely ask students to pay more money for the same number of tickets next year. The $10,000 payment does not appear to have changed that.

“The 2018-19 proposal process is still several months away, however, it is likely athletics will propose a modest increase to the student ticketing agreement,” Roedl said. “The agreement has been flat for four consecutive years while the cost of providing UO students an outstanding game-day experience rises annually.”

Follow Kenny Jacoby on Twitter @kennyjacoby

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Oregon track and field coaches routinely deny interview requests on student-athletes’ behalf in an effort to control which stories about the team are disseminated in the news media, the Emerald has found.

Multiple times the Emerald has requested interviews with student-athletes during the indoor and outdoor track seasons, only to discover that the coaches, particularly head coach Robert Johnson, prevented the interviews from happening — sometimes without ever consulting the athletes — because they preferred not to have those stories published.

The revelation contradicts the findings from University of Oregon general counsel Kevin Reed’s investigation of the athletic department earlier this year for potentially violating UO’s free speech policies. Reed’s March 2017 report concluded, “We find no evidence to support the allegation that the athletic department restricts student-athletes’ ability to address the media.”

Athletic department spokesman Craig Pintens says that sports information directors (SIDs), whose job is to facilitate interviews between reporters and student-athletes, usually funnel reporters’ interview requests directly to the student-athletes. Student-athletes are then supposed to have the option of either partaking in or declining the interview.

Oregon track head coach Robert Johnson (GoDucks.com)

But in the case of the track team, the SID informs Johnson of the interview request, then Johnson decides whether or not to grant the interview with the student-athlete.

In February, the Emerald requested interviews with four track and field athletes for a story about international students competing on the indoor track team. Track and field SID Nate Krueger initially responded saying “at least a couple of them” would be made available. But three days later, he told the Emerald via email, “We will have to hold off on the international story interviews for now; the coaches would like to focus on the athletes that will be competing at nationals.”

The Emerald followed up with Krueger, an intern and the SID for six Oregon teams, to ask why students who are not competing at the championships would be unavailable for an interview. Krueger responded, “We held back on those interviews this last week because Coach Johnson wanted all interviews to be focused on the upcoming MPSF and NCAA Championships.​ The stories that [the Emerald] had submitted requests for were both side stories with mostly athletes who will not be competing during the championship season, and the coaches want to make sure stories that we grant interviews for are focused on those athletes that will be competing in those meets. I did try to get those individual requests granted, but the coaches were adamant on holding off.”

In May, the Emerald requested interviews with sprinters Ariana Washington and Alaysha Johnson for stories about how Johnson and other female athletes apply face makeup before meets to boost their confidence and how thrower Ryan Hunter-Simms makes memes of the track team. Krueger told the Emerald three days later, “We’re back in the same situation we were in around the Indoor Championships. Neither of these stories really have to do with what is going on on the track or in competition, so the coaches would like to avoid these stories at this time.”

The Emerald later asked two of the previously requested athletes, Alaysha Johnson and international sprinter Chin Hui, whether an SID or coach ever informed them of the Emerald’s interview requests. Both said they were never informed.

When asked at a media availability on June 1 why he denies interviews on behalf of his student-athletes, Johnson disputed it.

“I think that is inaccurate,” Johnson said, “because [the Emerald] will send us a request of 15 kids, and you’ll get three, and then it’s bad, and we’re holding the kids back. So I don’t think there’s ever been a time when you’ve requested somebody that you didn’t get somebody. So that’s why I feel that your statement is inaccurate, and we don’t censor or hold back our kids from interviewing.”

Johnson is referring to an email the Emerald sent Krueger in March detailing four possible stories it hoped to pursue in the spring. The Emerald named 14 athletes whom it wanted to interview for those stories at some point during the season.

The season is almost over — NCAA championships begin Wednesday, June 7 — and Johnson and Krueger have since approved only two of the 14 requests.

Restricting press access

The athletic department requires that all media requests to interview athletes be routed through the team’s SID. So when coaches or SIDs block athletes’ access to the press, reporters often resort to circumventing the team’s interview protocols.

If SIDs find out, however, that a reporter has spoken to an athlete without permission, they sometimes threaten to revoke the reporter’s press credentials. The athletic department threatened to revoke the Emerald’s press credentials for the Civil War football game against Oregon State in November, after the Emerald contacted a student-athlete by phone without the athletic department’s permission.

University of Oregon general counsel Kevin Reed (AroundtheO)

That threat, delivered by football SID Dave Williford, prompted the UO Senate and UO President Michael Schill to ask Reed, UO’s attorney, to investigate whether the athletic department was violating UO’s policies on free speech. Reed’s investigation concluded that the Emerald credibly perceived Williford’s comments as a threat, but found no evidence that the athletic department restricts student-athletes access to the press.

A recommendation from Reed’s report was: “Media relations staff in the Department of Athletics should continue to promote its practice of empowering student-athletes to make their own choices about whether they wish to speak to the press or refrain from doing so.”

In response to the recommendation, UO Athletic Director Rob Mullens said in an email to the Emerald, “The media relations staff is continuing to work with student-athletes on protocols and re-emphasized the students choice of speaking to media or declining.”

UO athletic department spokesman Pintens told the Emerald in an email, “In most cases, the SID will promptly contact the student-athlete directly about an interview request. It can vary by team, but coaches are generally made aware of requests. In the event an interview is not conducted, there are multiple reasons for it being declined. The student-athlete might not feel comfortable conducting an interview, might not want to cause a distraction, or it might not fit into a student-athlete’s busy schedule.”

Pintens added that when staff members meet with the team to go over media policies — typically at a preseason team meeting or practice — student-athletes “are encouraged to participate in interviews and other media availabilities, but are told that ultimately the decision is up to them.”

The Oregon track and field team’s practice regarding interview requests — and Krueger’s emails — however, seem to directly contradict the statements made by Johnson, Reed, Mullens and Pintens.

“I don’t know if you understand how it works,” Johnson told the Emerald. “The NCAA is really big on these time demand things, and these athletes that we have here — we have 85 athletes on our team, and you can imagine the number of requests that come in for [star distance runner] Edward Cheserek. So oftentimes we leave it up to the kids, and they can say no, and then we’ll be the bad guys and say, ‘No, you cannot talk to this student-athlete.’ But on the outside of those cases, we pick and choose. We try to spread the wealth. We don’t want anybody to feel like they’re unfairly advantaged here.

“We have lots of kids and lots of talented people. If the media — you guys — had it your way, you would only talk to Edward Cheserek here in our program, and that wouldn’t be fair, so we give kind of everybody an opportunity. And there’s some requests that we want to do. We’ve been very gracious to the Emerald in granting them requests. As you can see, the article out there with [sprinter] Raevyn Rogers and the lipstick — that’s been a hit, and we do these things oftentimes. Oftentimes we also find ourselves in some of these things that the Emerald does where you do these interviews, and then they never get published or posted.”

But Johnson and Krueger did not make Rogers available to the Emerald to interview for the makeup story. The Emerald was able to get ahold of Rogers by pulling her aside after a large group interview session, and Krueger reprimanded the Emerald for doing so without prior approval, even though Rogers was willing to do the interview.

Additionally, Krueger said one of the reasons the Emerald’s interview requests were denied in February was because the Emerald had not yet published a story about distance runner Ashley Maton for which it previously interviewed her. The Emerald did eventually publish the story, after it spent time editing it to prepare it for publication.

“Being completely honest with you, the coaches and director of ops were frustrated that [the Emerald] had put in a number of additional requests while the Maton story had still not been seen by anyone,” Krueger said via email. “We are not trying to prevent [the Emerald] from writing those stories at all, and would be more than happy to grant those interviews after the NCAA indoors as outdoors get going. That would be a great time for those types of stories.”

Oregon Ducks head coach Robert Johnson watches the 1500 meters. The NCAA Track and Field National Championship is held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon on June 9, 2016. (Cole Elsasser/Emerald)

No explanation given

Reed interviewed Johnson as part of his investigation of the athletic department for restricting student-athletes’ access to reporters, but nothing about the track team’s interview practice showed up in his report.

Reed did not respond to three email requests for comment on this story.

The Emerald asked Krueger via email to explain why multiple athletes said they were never informed of the Emerald’s interview requests. Krueger did not answer the question, instead forwarding the email to Pintens.

Pintens did not explain either, except to say, “As stated in my previous email on the topic, generally, the majority of requests for student-athlete interviews are brought directly to the student-athletes. The Emerald is tied for the most individual feature requests (with the Oregonian) granted since the first track and field availability in early January, which includes several notable national track publications.”

The Emerald counted four individual interview requests it has been granted since January.

The Emerald followed up with Pintens three times via email to ask why the athletic department is permitting a practice that restricts its student-athletes’ access to media. Pintens did not respond to those emails.

A few hours after the Emerald sent the email to Krueger, track and field assistant athletic director Jill Steele sent an email to all the athletes on the track team urging them not to provide any information to media outlets without the athletic department’s approval.

Jonathan Hawthorne and Hannah Bonnie contributed reporting to this story.

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Follow Romaine Soh on Twitter @romsoh

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A previous version of this article misstates the annual debt amount paid for PK Park. The article stated the athletic department pays $4 million per year for PK Park, when the actual annual debt amount paid is $570,000 with an outstanding debt of $7.5 million. The Emerald regrets this error.

If Oregon baseball was winning championships, it’d be a bit easier to justify the amount of money it’s costing the University of Oregon.

When then-athletic director Pat Kilkenny decided to revive the baseball program and drop wrestling in 2009, he projected it to turn a profit within five years. But according to an Emerald analysis of the team’s financial transparency reports, the baseball program’s annual budget deficit has increased every year since 2009. Ticket sales, its greatest revenue driver, are down nearly 50 percent, and administration salaries now exceed the entire income of the program. The team has lost $17.5 million in nine seasons.

Former Oregon athletic director (left) Pat Kilkenny and former President Dave Frohnmayer (right). (Emerald archives)

Divide the team’s yearly net loss by its number of games, and the Ducks lose about $40,000 for every game they play. That does not include the $570,000 a year Oregon spends on debt payments for PK Park, the funds for which come out of a separate account.

Meanwhile, the team hasn’t fared well on the field. Its win percentage has declined each of the past three seasons, and the Ducks (27-24, 11-16 Pac-12) are on pace for another down year. They sit in eighth place in the Pac-12 standings and are all but guaranteed to miss the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row.

Eric Roedl, the Oregon athletic department’s chief financial officer, acknowledges the declining baseball attendance and ticket revenue. But the athletic department, he says, has no plans eliminate baseball or any other sport.

The gap between Oregon baseball’s expenses and revenues is widening. (Kenny Jacoby/Emerald)

In a time when academic programs are facing budget cuts, faculty are being laid off and students are facing drastic tuition increases, UO administrators show no indication of directing any money from the athletic department’s $110 million operating budget for academic purposes.

“PK Park is one of the nicest baseball facilities on the west coast, and baseball attendance and revenue growth have been and continue to be a priority for us,” Roedl said by email. “Our marketing and ticket sales teams continue to work closely with our baseball program to maximize the visibility and promotion of our games, create the best possible fan experience, and grow interest in our baseball program within the campus and surrounding communities.”

UO spokesman Tobin Klinger said President Michael Schill is “working to determine the best approach forward,” but suggested it is unlikely he would take any away from athletics to mitigate cuts to academics. Schill did not respond to multiple email requests for comment.

“Should it come down to re-examining the budget, it would be safe to say that we will need to think as broadly as possible,” Klinger said in an email. “That said, athletics is a self-sustaining auxiliary unit… and this exercise is ultimately about right sizing our general fund budget.”

Trending in the wrong direction

Oregon Ducks head coach George Horton speaks with his batters prior to the bottom of the ninth inning. The Oregon Ducks play the first game in a weekend series against the Stanford Cardinal at PK Park in Eugene, Ore. on Friday April 21, 2017. (Aaron Nelson/Emerald)

Head coach George Horton’s contract is set to expire in September, and his future at Oregon is uncertain. He’s a well-respected coach who has taken Oregon to five NCAA Tournaments and won a national championship with Cal State Fullerton, but the Ducks have yet to reach Horton’s goal of qualifying for a College World Series, and the team’s winning percentage has waned the past three seasons.

“We’ve had a couple crummy years; there’s no mistaking that,” Horton said May 13 after Oregon State swept the Ducks. “Hopefully [my bosses] have confidence in me. You can only do what you can do. I would like for them to think I’m the right man to turn it around and get it going in the right direction.”

Horton’s five-year contract, worth up to $800,000 per year in possible incentives, is a lucrative one among college baseball coaches. It stipulates that each year, on top of his base salary of $450,000, he gets to take home 10 percent of Oregon’s revenue from ticket sales or $50,000, whichever is greater. Horton has always gotten the $50,000, though, because the team never sold $500,000 in tickets in a season during his tenure.

Oregon baseball’s ticket sales are on the decline. (Kenny Jacoby/Emerald)

Ticket sales peaked at $480,000 in 2010 and have dropped almost in half since. The team brought in only $260,000 in ticket sales in 2016. Ticket sales, on average, account for about two thirds of the Ducks’ annual income. As ticket sales have declined, so has Oregon’s overall revenue.

On the other hand, the baseball team’s yearly expenses have increased over time, so its annual deficit has grown every year: from about $1.4 million in 2009 to $2.2 million in 2016, not including the debt payments for PK Park. In 2009 — the Ducks’ least costly season financially — Oregon brought in $720,000 while spending $2.1 million. Eight years later, the team brought in just $390,000 while spending $2.6 million.

Doing less with more

Administrative salaries, including Horton’s, are the biggest single cost driver of the team’s annual expenditures. They’ve risen 27 percent since 2009, while revenues have fallen 46 percent. In 2014, the team’s annual administrative salary costs actually exceeded the program’s total revenue, and since then, the gap has only widened.

“Pat Kilkenny is a smart businessman who has made a lot of money for himself and his investors in the insurance business,” UO Senate president and economics professor Bill Harbaugh said. “If only he’d been as careful when making decisions on behalf of UO, we’d have many more millions to invest in student scholarships. But then, people are notoriously careless when spending other people’s money, as the economist Milton Friedman often said.”

Annual administrative salaries now exceed the program’s total revenue. (Kenny Jacoby/Emerald)

Oregon State’s baseball program, on the other hand, has done far more with less money. The Beavers currently rank No. 1 in the country and have done so with 40 percent less day-of-game operating expenses than Oregon. According to 2016 Equity in Athletics Data Analysis (EADA) reports from the U.S. Department of Education, Oregon State spent $420,000 on operating expenses while Oregon spent $740,000, but the Beavers finished the season with six more wins.

After the Beavers ended the Ducks’ hopes of a winning Pac-12 record on May 13, Horton said he has not yet discussed a possible contract renewal with athletic department officials.

He wants to stay at Oregon, he said, but he’ll “probably have some other opportunities” if he doesn’t.

“The main reason I want to be here is I’ve got work to do,” Horton said. “I think I’ve let the people who hired me originally, Pat Kilkenny and President [Dave] Frohnmayer, when he was here — I think I’ve let them down a little bit. We were supposed to be in Omaha by now. I hope they continue to give me an opportunity.”

Zak Laster contributed reporting to this story.

Follow Kenny Jacoby on Twitter @kennyjacoby

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— Both the men and women of Oregon clinched the Pac-12 track and field championships Sunday in Eugene. Kyree King for the men and Deajah Stevens for the women swept the 100 and 200 meters, while Edward Cheserek pulled off yet another win in the 10,000 and Blake Haney returned to peak form in the 1,500.

— Following a sweep of Stanford last weekend, Oregon softball received a No. 3 rank in the NCAA Tournament, where they will face Illinois-Chicago on Friday to open their postseason run. On Monday, seven Ducks earned all-Pac-12 honors, including Maggie Balint, Megan Kleist, Danica Mercado and Nikki Udria, each of whom was named to the first team.

— Oregon baseball suffered a home sweep at the hands of Oregon State, all but assuring it will miss out on the NCAA Tournament for the second-straight year. On the bright side, junior Taylor Travess, a Springfield High School graduate, has carved himself a starting spot on the roster despite walking on to the team after two years of junior college ball.

— Both Oregon men’s and women’s tennis were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament Saturday. The men advanced to the regional final for the second-straight year but fell 4-0 to No. 12 Texas A&M, while the women — in their first NCAA Tournament in 10 years — lost 4-2 to No. 30 North Carolina State.

— Oregon men’s golf sits in third place after the first round of the NCAA regional. Three Ducks finished in the top 11 on the individual leaderboard: Edwin Yi is tied for third overall, three shots behind the leader, while Wyndham Clark and Norman Xiong shot part to tie for 11th.

— The Oregon Ducks have a ‘special’ defensive talent in freshman nose tackle Jordan Scott, writes the Oregonian’s Andrew Greif. The Ducks badly need a formidable presence on their defensive line, and Scott has made strong impressions not only in spring football practice but for his foresight off the field and in the classroom.

— The Oregon track team has transformed from a destination for long-distance runners to a hotbed for sprinters, writes the Register-Guard’s Austin Meek.

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Six former Oregon volleyball players signed a letter to UO officials alleging that former coaches Jim Moore and Stacy Metro mistreated them while they were members of the Ducks volleyball team, the Emerald has learned.

The letter, written by former player Naya Crittenden and forwarded to the Emerald, supported the university’s decision to part ways with the coaches. Attached to the letter were two personal letters written by Crittenden and ex-teammate Nicole Kevorken accusing Moore and Metro of ridiculing, body-shaming and verbally abusing them during practices, causing them to suffer anxiety and depression and to ultimately leave the team.

Crittenden sent the letter to UO President Michael Schill and UO’s athletic directors.

Naya Crittenden (GoDucks.com)

Moore declined to comment on this story. Metro and a UO athletic department spokesman could not immediately be reached.

The school announced in March that Moore retired and was “sorry” for his coaching style. Metro, his wife, no longer coaches volleyball but remains an UO employee. Moore, in his 12 years with the program, led the Ducks to 10 NCAA tournaments and one national championship game, becoming the winningest coach in school history. Metro has been an assistant coach at Oregon for 12 years and served as head coach of the beach volleyball team.

According to public records obtained by the Emerald, Moore and Metro will be paid according to their respective salaries through their resignation dates: May 15, 2017, and January 31, 2018, respectively.

The Register-Guard in March, before the school’s announcement, reported that 17 former players wrote a letter supporting Moore, but the recent letter signed by the six players said that Oregon’s athletic department didn’t properly address allegations of misconduct. Crittenden and Kevorken said both talked to an athletic department official about their concerns in 2015 but Moore and Metro continued to coach.

Both Crittenden and Kevorken’s letters alleged Moore and Metro, husband and wife, belittled players and created a culture in which players were afraid to speak out for fear of becoming a target of the coaches’ verbal abuse.

“I suffered from depression and anxiety quietly for two years, something I didn’t even identify until I transferred,” Crittenden wrote. “A player should never have to feel like that. No one should ever have to hate every moment of being a part of a team.”

The players accused Metro of body-shaming their teammates, including Kevorken. Kevorken said Metro belittled her after she ordered a bagel with cream cheese at a nutrition bar between practice sessions. According to Kevorken, Metro told her, “Nicky, you don’t need cream cheese. If someone like Canace [Finley] wants to eat cream cheese that’s one thing, but you of all people do not need to be eating cream cheese with a body like yours.”

Stacy Metro (GoDucks.com)

“She looked my body up and down as she said this,” Kevorken wrote. “Not sure if she is aware or if she even cares, but speaking words like that to young women in such a tone is an action that often leads to eating disorders and body dysmorphia.”

Crittenden said after a “particularly messy practice filled with tears” in fall 2013, in which Metro allegedly repeatedly body-shamed a teammate, Moore sat down with the team and asked the players whether they wanted Metro fired.

“Of course, most of us did want her gone, but no one spoke up because we were too scared to actually voice our opinion on the matter,” Crittenden said.

According to Crittenden, Metro had a “negative attitude toward women and any type of femininity” and banned players from painting their nails and wearing colorful headbands and lipstick at practice.

Moore, Crittenden said, had frequent anger outbursts, including a time on a team trip in which he “threw a fit” at a Jamba Juice cashier because he ordered a drink before the rest of the team but received his last.

“All I am going to say is, those fits you see him throw during games, didn’t just happen during games,” Crittenden wrote.

Kevorken said Moore was kind and personable when he recruited her, but that he became a different person at her first practice.

“The kind, personable man that seemed to only have the best intentions was nowhere to be found,” Kevorken wrote. “Instead, he became this vicious, mean, degrading human being barking orders.”

Kevorken said Moore singled her out as a freshman and used her as “a scapegoat to take out his anger and aggression on.” She said she spent most of her time at practices on the sidelines watching or collecting stray volleyballs and putting them back in the cart. When she did get on the court to play, she said, Moore automatically gave the point to the other team if she did something well.

“He would claim that as soon as I stepped on the court and was involved in a play, something illegal was done and we lost the point,” Kevorken wrote. “If I ever scored a point, it was not because I did something right but because someone on the opposite side made a mistake. Never once was I praised for doing anything correctly. If I got a kill, the ball was always automatically called out of bounds, even when everyone knew it was very clearly in.”

Kevorken’s older teammates told her that it was a typical practice for Moore to choose one freshman to pick on.

“This man was cruel,” she said. “He used words like ‘pathetic’, ‘ridiculous’, ‘embarrassing’, ‘horrible’, ‘laughable’, and ‘stupid’ to describe me and my athletic ability.”

Kevorken said Moore forced her off the team after her first season. She described being called into Moore’s office and being told “You can’t stay here,” followed by, “It’s obvious that you don’t belong here. You are nowhere near good enough to play here and you never will be.”

“I felt like I was five years old and desperately wanted my mom to be here by my side with me and make this all better,” Kevorken wrote. “But I was alone. I felt so alone and destroyed.”

Nicky Kevorken (Loyola Marymount University)

Kervorken left the team and joined Loyola Marymount University in 2014, while Crittenden asked for — and was granted — a release at the end of the 2015 school year. She now plays for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Crittenden said the purpose of her letter is not to “bash coaches,” but to tell the story she had previously kept quiet and encourage others to do the same. She said it’s time for athletic departments to stop being negligent when athletes come forward to them.

“I want other athletes who may be suffering in silence to know that their feelings are valid, their words are valid, and their stories matter,” she wrote.

Haylee Roberts, Canace Finley, Chloe Buckendahl and Maddie Magee were the other four players whose names and signatures appeared at the bottom of the letter to Schill and Mullens.

“We can rest easier knowing that the former coaches are no longer in a position to negatively impact young athletes and we no longer feel ashamed to identify ourselves as former Oregon Ducks,” they wrote.

Find the full letter from the six former players here.

Jonathan Hawthorne is also an author of this story.

Follow Kenny Jacoby on Twitter @kennyjacoby

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A University of Oregon student plead not guilty to strangulation on Friday after allegedly choking a man until the man blacked out at the Patterson Medical building, four blocks from campus.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed in Lane County Circuit Court, Hunter Hastings, a 20-year-old economics major, was caught on video on March 31 grabbing a man by the neck with both hands, forcing him to the ground and choking him with his right arm until the man lost consciousness. The video shows the man on the floor motionless for approximately 25 seconds after Hastings got off of him, the affidavit states.

Eugene Police responded to the fight before 5:28 p.m. and interviewed both the man who was choked and Hastings, who each told the officer that they got into a verbal argument. Hastings told the officer that the man was calling him a “bitch,” so Hastings pushed him in the chest with both hands, according to the affidavit. Hastings said he felt threatened and used a “legal chokehold to subdue” the man.

The man separately told the officer that out of nowhere Hastings grabbed him by his neck with both hands and squeezed, according to the affidavit. He told the officer that Hastings pushed him backward by his neck, so he “swung at” Hastings, then Hastings took him to the ground and choked him until he blacked out. The man said he woke up confused.

The officer observed a scratch on the right side of the man’s neck and bruising on both sides and booked Hastings on a misdemeanor strangulation charge.

Hastings plead not guilty to the strangulation charge during his arraignment Friday morning. A pre-trial conference hearing is scheduled for June 1 at 2:30 p.m with Judge Karsten Rasmussen, a pro tem law instructor at UO who is currently teaching insurance law.

Rasmussen has been busy in court as well as the classroom. In the past month, he has sentenced a man to life in prison for the murder of a Eugene woman, reassigned a Lane County judge who is accused of bias, and told a Springfield teacher who was arrested for intoxicated driving and cocaine possession that she would have to plead guilty, instead no contest, if she wanted wanted the DUII charge diverted.

Hastings’ citation lists his home address as a room inside the Patterson Medical building. The fight took place inside the lobby.

Hastings could not be reached by phone for comment.

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HARRISBURG, Ore. — Four people have been confirmed dead in a plane crash Friday morning near Harrisburg, about 10 miles north of Eugene, Linn County Sheriff Bruce Riley said.

A small, single-engine plane crashed into an empty field off Peoria Road about a mile and a half north of Harrisburg just before 11 a.m. Friday. Deputies arrived on scene after a 9-1-1 call alerted them about the crash. The plane was found about 25 to 30 yards north of the initial point of impact.

Neither the destination of the aircraft nor the identities of the passengers are known at this time. Riley does not believe there are any survivors.

“We had some folks that maybe witnessed the plane — whether it was some mechanical difficulties or weather-related, we don’t know,” Riley said. “My understanding is the call came in from some folks that saw it having problems or going down.”

The cause of the plane crash has yet to be determined, though tornado warnings were issued in the area early Friday. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board have begun to investigate.

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