State probe details allegations of inappropriate student-coach relations over several years

MERKEL - A state probe of relationships between Merkel students and teachers paints a picture that suggests boundaries between coaches and students vanished years ago.

The six-month investigation by the state department of Child Protective Services, which investigates allegations of child abuse and neglect, is believed to be a first for the school district. The Taylor County Sheriff's Office assisted CPS with the investigation, which was prompted by a teacher's complaint in August.

No arrests have been made in the investigation, although District Attorney James Eidson is expected to present the findings of that investigation to a grand jury Thursday. A final report was presented to the school board in March.

Investigators looked into allegations and rumors spanning 20 years and conducted interviews with more than 100 people and wrote a report.

It portrays a small town that in many ways will sound familiar to residents of other Big Country communities - a place where people leave their doors unlocked, look after one another's property and rally together around anything involving the town's children.

But it also paints a picture that residents of small towns anywhere would find shocking. It is filled with graphic details of alleged sexual relationships between coaches and students.

Months of speculation about who were the targets and who were the victims angered and embarrassed some Merkel residents so much they say they no longer want to tell people where they live.

Since the investigation started, coach Dustin Lewis, 28, and Athletic Director Jeff Faubion, 43, have resigned. Coach Tim Cope, 38, was fired. Coach Shawn Bullock, 33, remains at the school district. All four men are under review by the State Board for Educator Certification. The district employs around 115 teachers, about 20 of whom also coach.

The Reporter-News reviewed a 103-page preliminary CPS report that included statements to the sheriff's office and CPS interviews conducted between August 2004 and February. The more than 100 people interviewed for that report include administrators, past and present school board members, current and former coaches and nearly 30 possible victims of child sexual abuse, in addition to parents and other current and former students.

Coaches Faubion and Cope declined to talk to CPS, according to the preliminary report. Lewis told the agency he had not had a relationship with any high school girl. In his interview with CPS investigators, Bullock neither denied nor confirmed any of the rumors or complaints about himself.

Faubion told the Reporter-News that he did not talk to CPS investigators because his attorneys advised him not to. He said the investigation is based entirely on rumors. He said after the school board met with CPS investigators to discuss preliminary findings of the investigation Feb. 24, he was allowed to keep his job.

''If there was any evidence of wrongdoing or misconduct with a student, we would have been gone the next day,'' he said. ''By law, we would have been gone. I wouldn't have been able to finish the season. I finished coaching my basketball season. I resigned because there was no way after this that I could have been effective in Merkel.''

''I've made all the appropriate comments to all the appropriate people,'' he said.

Lewis' Merkel telephone number has been disconnected, and he could not be reached for comment. Cope could also not be reached for comment.

In the CPS interviews, Merkel, a town of 2,600 people 13 miles west of Abilene, is described as a place where it is not unusual to see teens driving coaches' vehicles through the streets. Nor is it uncommon to see a girl shooting hoops in a gym alone late at night with a coach. Students often visit coaches' homes, sometimes to get the keys to the gym. Sometimes to baby sit.

Merkel, as portrayed in CPS interviews, is a community where students and teachers are close.

So close, in fact, that interviews suggest a handful of coaches partied, drank and had sexual relationships with students.

Salacious details and sometimes graphic allegations poured out in CPS interviews. School officials and residents shouldn't be surprised. They've probably heard it all. The rumors have drifted through the town for years.

''You heard enough things that you knew something was going on,'' said Sherry Burton, who grew up in Merkel.

Danny Pollard, a four-year Merkel resident, heard the rumors. He told the Reporter-News he believed people were too scared of retaliation to do anything about them.

But if Merkel residents were concerned, they weren't speaking up, at least not publicly. School board minutes dating back to 1990 and police records dating to 2002 reveal little if anything was said or done about the rumors.

Two years ago, a high school student told school officials she had a sexual relationship with a coach, according to the CPS preliminary report and faculty notes. The school district's attorneys at Underwood, Wilson, Berry, Stein and Johnson, which has offices in Amarillo and Lubbock, provided the notes as part of an open records request by the Reporter-News.

Her disclosure prompted a series of meetings. At least one of the meetings was in the office of high school Principal Laura O'Rear, and was attended by the accused coach, Athletic Director Jeff Faubion, O'Rear, the student, her mother and Merkel Police Chief Bob Jones.School officials pressured the student to drop the matter when she later said they had only kissed, according to the documents.

Her mother told CPS that in that meeting, Faubion, who has since resigned, told her if she pursued the issue, her daughter could no longer play sports. Faubion then asked the girl's mother if she would rather ''her daughter be known for playing point guard ... at Merkel than the kid who sent a coach to jail.''

Faubion asked the victim why she would ''push this if it was only a kiss,'' according to the girl's CPS statement.

In notes Faubion made after the meeting for school officials, he recalled saying at one meeting that if it was his daughter, he would handle the matter privately. He would have a long talk with the coach and his daughter, he wrote.

''I would have some form of punishment for my daughter,'' he wrote in the notes, ''because she would not be without blame.''

Faubion said he said that because the student lied about what happened with the coach.

Merkel Police Chief Bob Jones, told CPS no charges could be brought if only kissing were alleged because it wasn't a crime.

She said she flirted with the coach in the hopes of starting a relationship. She said he finally responded and encouraged her to visit him at his home. During one visit, he led her to his bedroom where they kissed and he touched her genitals.

Several people interviewed by CPS said the girl told them she had sex with the coach and could describe what his bedroom looked like.

The coach told school officials the girl was lying and that his teenage son was at home when one alleged incident happened, according to the notes he made to school officials about the meetings. He said the girl's mother told him she knew her daughter was lying and that the family did not want to pursue the complaint.

Diane Dotson, executive director of the Regional Crime Victim Crisis Center in Abilene, said the reporting victim should never have been confronted by the alleged abuser in this manner.

''That's the reason they (victims) don't report,'' she said. ''They're afraid of being attacked and retaliated against.''

Merkel schools' Superintendent Bill Hood told the Reporter-News last week that the mother requested the coach be present. Since then, the superintendent said, CPS has informed him that victims and their accusers should not be in the same room.

At the time of the girl's allegations, CPS was not contacted - not by the principal, the superintendent, a counselor or the police chief.

Hood said a principal is usually the first person to investigate a student's alleged sexual misconduct with an employee. Then, the principal determines if the police and CPS need to be alerted. Because of this recent incident, Hood said, the district will report all allegations to CPS. ''We've learned a lot from this,'' he said.

While one alleged student-teacher relationship was dismissed, rumors about it and others persisted.

In August 2004, a Merkel High School teacher contacted CPS because he said he felt it was ''time to put the rumors to rest.''

The allegations outlined to CPS triggered an investigation that spanned four states, required hundreds of interviews and stretched to multiple school districts.

There were the first-hand accounts from girls alleging sexual relationships with coaches.

Some of the rumors, interestingly, could have started with the girls themselves. Even though many girls denied to CPS that coaches had done anything improper to them, the girls apparently told friends a different story.

Alleged misconduct included in the CPS report ranged from inappropriate comments made by coaches to stays at an Abilene motel to long-running sexual affairs. Some students admittedly pursued relationships with coaches. Others, including an eighth-grader, may have been the prey.

Relationships with girls who had crushes on them were easy for the coaches to start. In some cases, they simply had to name a place and time, according to CPS interviews

Other girls were harder to convince. After all, some of these men were years older, balding, married and had children.

So they groomed pretty girls. The coaches sprinkled their conversations with sexual innuendo, asked about their love lives and offered relationship advice, according to CPS interviews.

The CPS preliminary report paints a picture of how the alleged relationships came about:

The men weren't all young, but they acted like it. The coaches invited teens over to drink, and years ago, showed up at their parties. Some of the coaches who partied and allegedly had sex with students over the years are now coaching at other West Texas school districts.

To cultivate intimate relationships with girls, coaches would make one a class pet. Such a student would be asked to go to a coach's home to pick up a tie from his bedroom closet or be allowed to drive the coach's vehicle. Some were asked to baby-sit the coaches' children.

The men also called the girls frequently on their cell phones, e-mailed them and watched them undress in locker rooms, according to CPS interviews.

Even a married trustee, who is no longer on the school board, was a drinking buddy of one of the coaches involved with students. The trustee also asked students and recent graduates for dates and to take trips with him, according to the CPS report.

These patterns of behavior didn't develop overnight. They took years to cultivate. Two coaches were accused of displaying similar behavior at schools they coached at before Merkel.

For one coach, the inappropriate behavior stretches back 20 years to another school district, according to CPS interviews.

One woman, who says she was molested by the coach in the eighth and ninth grades in another West Texas town, told the Reporter-News she wishes she had reported the abuse earlier.

The woman would baby-sit the coach's daughter while his wife was home, she told CPS. At the coach's home, she said he would take her hand and place it on his genitals. He also touched her breasts, according to her CPS statement.

She didn't tell anyone about the abuse. She felt no one would believe her, she told CPS.

Currently, a victim has 10 years from his or her 18th birthday to report allegations of sexual abuse.

For the woman abused by the coach, it's too late. She urged girls to speak up if they experienced abuse.

Another law change that may help prevent sexual abuse between coaches and students occurred in 2003. Lawmakers prohibited sex between a teacher and a student regardless of whether the student was 17, the age of consent.

Previously, it was not illegal for a student and teacher to engage in sexual activities if the student was 17 and agreed the relationship was consensual.

The same coach is alleged to have had multiple affairs with students over the years.

One woman told CPS she became involved with him after she graduated. But CPS interviews point to the coach following her on at least two occasions while she was still in high school.

The other coach at the center of an alleged relationship with a Merkel student has a long history of inappropriate behavior, according to CPS interviews.

One woman told CPS she started flirting with another coach her freshman year at a different high school. By her sophomore year, the woman said her body began to develop and the coach took notice. He massaged her shoulders in class. She, in turn, wore low-cut shirts, which he told her he liked.

Toward the end of her sophomore year, someone left condoms in her locker. A note attached said, ''Maybe we can put these to use.'' The coach told her they were from him.

Their flirting continued until her senior year, when they kissed on a school bus at an out-of-town track meet. Another time, they drove to secluded property in the coach's truck and had intercourse, she said in her statement to the Taylor County Sheriff's Office.

Merkel residents want to know how such coaches could have been hired at their school district.

Standard hiring procedure for a school district includes a criminal record and reference check. None of the coaches investigated had criminal records.

The two coaches with previous jobs had glowing reviews. For the others, Merkel was their first teaching job.

One superintendent recently contacted at a school district where one coach previously worked said he has nothing but good to say about the man who took that school's basketball team to state. Another superintendent where a different coach previously worked said the man's evaluations say he ''exceeded expectations'' before he moved to Merkel.

Merkel residents are also asking how alleged abuse could have gone on for so long without being reported or investigated. CPS documents show few girls have been willing to speak up.

Dotson, who heads the crime victim crisis center, said many girls are afraid to come forward because they feel ashamed about the abuse.

''Lots of times they feel like it's their fault,'' Dotson said. ''They think they should have done something different.''

Other victims won't report abuse because they feel like no one will believe them or if they do tell, they will be punished.

Girls from the basketball team were interviewed by CPS investigators. Hood, the superintendent, later met with the team and apologized to the girls for any stress it caused them.

Several girls said Hood told them at that meeting that they knew and he knew these were false accusations. He said he didn't know who started it and whether it was parents who felt their child didn't get to play enough or someone who just didn't like the coach. He then said the coach was a good man.

New coaches have also been hired by the school district to try to lead Merkel in a new direction.

There also was change on the Merkel school board earlier this month. Two new trustees were elected, and one incumbent was defeated.

Hood said the school district is looking forward to the end of the school year so students and teachers can come back in the fall refreshed and recharged.

''We're just going to be as positive as we can and move on,'' he said. ''We're going to put this behind us and move forward and get back to education.''

Two thousand six hundred residents and one hundred and fifteen teachers? Did I miss something in the article or does Texas just have a very low student to teacher ratio?
I am now always skeptical of these wide ranging sexual abuse investigations. History has shown us that they most often grab up many innocent people who have their lives ruined before they are cleared many years later.

Two thousand six hundred residents and one hundred and fifteen teachers? Did I miss something in the article or does Texas just have a very low student to teacher ratio? I am now always skeptical of these wide ranging sexual abuse investigations. History has shown us that they most often grab up many innocent people who have their lives ruined before they are cleared many years later.

The school district encompasses many square miles. There is a student population of around 1400-1500. This is the case in many West Texas towns. There is a fairly low student/teacher ratio, but some of these coaches only coach and don't teach. Guess it remains to be seen if the accused are innocent or not.

Two thousand six hundred residents and one hundred and fifteen teachers? Did I miss something in the article or does Texas just have a very low student to teacher ratio? I am now always skeptical of these wide ranging sexual abuse investigations. History has shown us that they most often grab up many innocent people who have their lives ruined before they are cleared many years later.

There was an example of that in Washington State where girls were used to accuse innocent adults of false sexual abuse. HOWEVER, if true, these coaches were putting themselves in the wrong situations at the wrong time in the wrong places. What the "()*()*)(* where they thinking??? What I hate more is that it only gives more ammuntion propaganda for the education liberals to use in their political agenda against eduction. Being adults, they should have known better.

Most Texas school districts have a lot of rural students. The size of the town will have nothing to do with the number of students - expecially in West Texas. Some of the kids I went to school with rode the bus for 1 hour, 1 way.

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