Former Colorado Kicker Says She Was Raped

[Guest OctoberBlood]

Link

 

By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer

 

DENVER - The University of Colorado said it planned to hire a special administrator to oversee its athletic department and scandal-plagued football program after a female placekicker said she was raped by a teammate four years ago.

 

 

Katie Hnida says in the upcoming edition of Sports Illustrated that she was assaulted in the summer of 2000. Three other women have sued the school in federal court, saying they were raped by players or recruits at or after an off-campus party in December 2001.

 

 

No assault charges have been filed in those cases, but Boulder County prosecutor Mary Keenan said in a deposition for one of the lawsuits that she believes the football program uses alcohol and sex to entice recruits. Keenan did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

 

 

Hnida issued a statement Tuesday through the University of New Mexico, where she's a student, saying she was "healing" from "horrors endured" at Colorado. The statement does not mention rape, and she says she does not plan to press charges.

 

 

Hnida's statement, however, was intended to confirm the account in Sports Illustrated, said New Mexico athletics spokesman Greg Remington. Attempts to locate Hnida were not immediately successful.

 

 

University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman and Chancellor Richard Byyny said the special administrator will work within the athletics department and report directly to them. They said they're seeking someone who is familiar with athletics programs at a major university.

 

 

"I think if this person is in the department every day, if such conduct exists this person would see it," Hoffman said.

 

 

Hoffman said she and Byyny trust athletic director Dick Tharp and football coach Gary Barnett but still need to monitor the situation to "perhaps save the university from imminent financial ruin."

 

 

Barnett said he was surprised by Hnida's allegation. Asked if he intended to step down as Colorado's coach, Barnett said no.

 

 

The governor has urged the university to take action and an independent panel has been chosen to put together a report by April 30 on recruiting practices. University officials have denied Keenan's allegations.

 

 

Hnida, 22, left Colorado after the 1999 season, later enrolling at New Mexico. Last August, she said she was a target of sexual harassment when she was at Colorado but did not mention rape. She told Sports Illustrated, however, that she was assaulted in 2000 at a teammate's home.

 

 

"He starts to kiss me," she said. "I told him, 'That's not OK.' Next thing I know he's on top of me. I told him, 'No!' ... I tried to push him off me, but he outweighed me by 100 pounds."

 

 

She said she was able to escape after the telephone rang. Asked why she didn't tell police, she said she was afraid of the player and didn't want a "media mess."

 

 

Hnida did not try out for the Buffaloes in 2000 after Barnett said he told her she would have to beat out other kickers for the job. Last fall, Hnida said she didn't return for several reasons, including "an incident during that summer."

 

 

Hnida later became the first woman to compete in a Division I-A football game when she attempted an extra point for New Mexico in the 2002 Las Vegas Bowl.

 

 

The panel appointed to look into Colorado's recruiting practices has run into its own trouble because of potential conflicts of interest. Kenneth Vardell, a retired FBI agent, resigned after regents realized he had administered a lie-detector test to a player after the 2001 party.

 

 

Another commission member, Pentecostal bishop Phillip Porter, helped lead the Promise Keepers religious movement launched by former Colorado football coach Bill McCartney. Porter said board Chairman Peter Steinhauer had told him he wants him to remain on the commission.

[Guest Choken One]

I bet #18 is DAMN proud to be in that picture...it looks like they just broke up or something.

[Drury37 0]

The former female play kicker is smoking!!!

Thanks.

[Drury37 0]

Since when does the thing say Jeff Hardy under my name that is odd.

Thanks.

[nl5xsk1 0]

I feel horrible for saying this about someone who's only being shown because she was raped, but she's a lot cuter than I anticipated her being. I kind of presumed that a female kicker on the football team would have been a bit more, ahem, rotund.

 

Oh, and before I forget, FUCK CU and their scandal marred program. I hope they get put on permanent probation. nl5: proud to be a CSU graduate.

Edited February 18, 2004 by nl5xsk1

[Drury37 0]

I feel horrible for saying this about someone who's only being shown because she was raped, but she's a lot cuter than I anticipated her being. I kind of presumed that a female kicker on the football team would have been a bit more, ahem, rotund.

I agree with the cute part but she would only be rotund if she was like a guard or tackle since she is a place kicker it kind of makes sense.

Thanks.

[Damaramu 0]

Hmm.......a woman breaks through into football and actually has a chance of doing well for herself and a bunch of horomonal jackasses ruin it......why am I not shocked?

[Guest Choken One]

Here's what I don't get...

 

I remember having a close bond with my teammates in Highschool and felt as if we were brothers...

 

Clearly, This girl trained with them and worked her ass off...Shouldn't they have some sort of sister/brother relationship with her?

 

Then again Our Placekicker wasn't all that hot.

[Guest The Satanic Angel]

Clearly, This girl trained with them and worked her ass off...Shouldn't they have some sort of sister/brother relationship with her?

I read in an article yesterday that she was allowed on the team by a previous coach, who then left and the new coach only kept her on as a favor. The team had been harassing her from day one.

 

I'll edit this if I find said article.

 

Here it is:

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writ...nida/index.html

 

Another Victim at Colorado

After being verbally abused and molested by teammates, former kicker Katie Hnida says, she was raped by one of them

 

If you thought Colorado football recruiting parties were jailbreaks, brace yourself for the allegations made by the only woman ever to play on the team.

 

As a CU placekicker in 1999, Katie Hnida says she endured a kind of sexual hell you can't imagine. After being verbally abused and molested by teammates, Hnida says, she was raped by one of them.

 

An honor-roll student, a homecoming queen and an honorable mention all-county kicker at Littleton (Colo.) Chatfield High, Hnida (NYE-da) had dreamed of booting for Colorado. "Football is what makes me breathe," she says. Then-coach Rick Neuheisel invited her to walk on, she accepted and then he took off, leaving her in new coach Gary Barnett's hands. "None of the players wanted her on the team," Barnett remembers. "Basically we were doing her a favor."

 

On her first day of practice Hnida found out how welcome she was. She says five teammates surrounded her and verbally abused her, making sexually graphic comments. During the season players exposed themselves to her "at least five times," she says. "They'd go, 'Hey, Katie, check this out!'" One player came up from behind, she says, and rubbed his erect penis against her.

 

Sometimes when the entire team was huddled up, Hnida says, players stuck their hands on her crotch or groped her breasts under her shoulder pads. "She endured more abuse than one person should have to bear," former teammate Justin Bates says. Even as she practiced, players called her vulgar names and one fired footballs at her head.

 

Why didn't she tell Barnett? "Because I was terrified," she says. "He didn't want me around in the first place. I thought for sure he'd kick me off [the team]."

 

The worst was yet to come. One summer night Hnida was watching TV at the house of a teammate. "He just starts to kiss me," she recalls. "I told him, 'That's not O.K.' Next thing I know he's on top of me. I told him, 'No!' But he just kept going, 'Shhhhh.' I tried to push him off me, but he outweighed me by 100 pounds." Hnida says he lifted her skirt, pushed aside her panties and penetrated her. She was a virgin. The phone rang, he reached for it, she slipped out from under him and ran.

 

Why didn't she go to the police? "I was so scared of what he might do to me," she says. "And I didn't want a huge media mess. I was already carrying around so much inside me, I was numb."

 

Just before the start of the 2000 season, it was clear that Hnida, sick with tonsillitis, was not going to make the roster. She says she fell into "the darkest of dark places."

 

Worried for his daughter after she had finally told him about some of her hell (but not the rape), Maj. Dave Hnida, an Army surgeon currently stationed in Iraq, went to athletic director Dick Tharp and Barnett about "the cornering, the groping, the name-calling and the football-at-the-head thing," Katie's father says. He got nowhere. "Talking to Barnett was like talking to a wall."

 

Neither Tharp nor Barnett recalls Dave Hnida saying anything about sexual harassment. "If I'd have heard that, I'd have jumped down somebody's throat," Barnett says. "Not one time did I ever see or hear about anybody treating her wrong. I don't believe she was sexually harassed. I don't believe our players would do that. They'd be in too much trouble with me." Barnett says he gave one player a "tongue-lashing" for making a vulgar comment to Katie.

 

She dropped out of CU after her sophomore year. She says she was depressed for two years, suffered from insomnia and gave up kicking. Her dad ached for her. "Barnett went on TV and said how these [recent recruiting party] accusations have hurt his family," Dave Hnida says. "I'll show you a hurt family."

 

Katie went into therapy, enrolled at a junior college and then had the guts to walk on at New Mexico in 2002. Last August she became the first woman to score in Division I football history when she kicked two PATs in the Lobos' 72-8 rout of Texas State-San Marcos.

 

Meanwhile, three other women alleged they were raped by players or recruits at or following a Colorado football recruiting party in 2001 (click here for full story). There have been reports of players hiring strippers for recruits as recently as last month.

 

So why is Hnida, 22, telling her story now? "Because all the news sent me back into that nightmare," she says. "It made me literally sick. I realized that until I tell my story, I can never heal."

 

Hnida isn't suing Colorado or pressing charges against former teammates. "I just want to see changes made there," she says.

 

She also wants a sixth-year exemption from the NCAA, so she can return to the Lobos. "We have 125 great guys on this team, and I haven't had one single incident," Hnida says. "That's because of the standard  Coach [Rocky] Long sets here for behavior. There's no b.s."

 

At Colorado they're majoring in b.s. The denials have piled up like cordwood. You show me a coach who maintains he's unaware of recruiting parties featuring paid strippers, of four alleged rapes, of sexual harassment claims by one of his players against other players, and I'll show you a coach who is hell-bent on not knowing.

 

Makes this alum want to hide his class ring.

 

Issue date: February 23, 2004

Edited February 18, 2004 by Graycloud

[Guest Choken One]

That's a shame

 

First for the Girl herself to be raped by who were supposed to be her "TEAMMATES" and now, Teams will be hesitant to let girls play(as if they already weren't) because they will fear this type of situation.

[Damaramu 0]

Well if she's a good kicker then why give her trouble? Because she's a woman!? Jesus.

 

Oh and I'm getting really tired of all the "Well everyone does it. So give Colorado a break." I guess we go back to the old school "If everyone jumped off of a bridge...." Sorry Colorado you got caught. And IF any other schools are doing it and are caught then they'll be in deep shit to. That defense doesn't work when it's something serious like this guys.

[sfaJack 0]

The thing I don't get is this: in the SI article, CU coach Gary Barnett said that neither he nor anyone on his staff knew that this was going on. WTF?

 

There isn't ONE coach who didn't see one instance of the groping or harassment himself or overhear some of the players bragging about that stuff? Huh? I find that very hard to believe.

[Damaramu 0]

And I hope the NCAA does let her play for as long as possible at New Mexico. That's BS that her career was pretty much ruined for that.

I mean it's not like she can go to the NFL.....that'd be a fucking nightmare for her.

[HarleyQuinn 0]

Personally I'm not surprised that Colorado was caught. They have a HUGE reputation as a party school and sooner or later something scandalous was going to happen, esp. given the reputation.

[Guest MikeSC]

Hey, let's not jump the gun.

 

Maybe they rape ALL kickers who miss a kick.

 

THAT is incentive to be accurate.

-=Mike

[Guest Choken One]

Hey, let's not jump the gun.

 

Maybe they rape ALL kickers who miss a kick.

 

THAT is incentive to be accurate.

-=Mike

Poor Scott Norwood...I bet he hasn't sat down in the last 12 years.

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

BOULDER - As an old-school head coach, Gary Barnett was never really enamored with having a woman on his University of Colorado football roster. But in 1999, he inherited Katie Hnida from former CU coach Rick Neuheisel.

 

Why didn't Hnida mesh with the Buffaloes?

 

Simple, Barnett said Tuesday: "It's a guy's sport. (Players) felt like Katie was forced on them. It was obvious Katie was not very good. She was awful. You know what guys do? They respect your ability. You can be 90 years old, but if you can go out and play, they'll respect you. Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There's no other way to say it."

 

Dumbass

[Chuck Woolery 0]

I'd tend to side with Barnett, in the sense that if she's not good, having her on the team as a p.r. lightning rod. I'd also understand why players don't respect her -- it says in the article that she's kicking a massive two PATs in college, which would lend credibility to Barnett's claim that she wasn't a very good placekicker.

 

That said... playing ability, lacking or no, shouldn't be an excuse to sexually harass someone. If all the things at Colorado are true, it should be a huge incentive to other schools to shut down whatever shit might be going on there.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Its not that she wasn't good. Its that it was a poor choice of words, and a BAD time to bring it up. I'll be surprised if he's not canned very shortly.

[MrRant 0]

Umm..

 

I'd hit it.

[Steviekick 0]

Not to make light of her situation, but she's gorgeous.

[Drury37 0]

I just saw the coach of Colorado on SportsCenter and he was like she was a terrible kicker like it was alright to rape her because she was a terrible kicker that is rediculous I do not care if she is a great kicker or a terrible kicker you still can not rape the girl that is just rediculous!!!

Thanks.

[2GOLD 0]

When did Barnett become a dickhead?

 

And if she wasn't good, cut her. As for these players, they should all rot in hell.

 

Colorado should receive the SMU death sentence.

[Drury37 0]

Just my thing is WHO SAYS THAT? I do not care if she not good WHO SAYS THAT? You can not be like oh she sucked so it is alright that they raped her COME ON HERE!!!

Thanks.

[Gert T 0]

Neuheisel, Barnett, the tradition continues at CU.

 

I'm sure Barnett has been hassled by the media non-stop, but if that sound byte today wasn't the worst thing he could have said addressing those allegations, I'd be shocked.

[Damaramu 0]

I saw one of the regents on Outside the Lines saying he's going starting at the bottom with the players and working all the way up to the President. Sweet.

[nl5xsk1 0]

When did Barnett become a dickhead?

 

And if she wasn't good, cut her. As for these players, they should all rot in hell.

 

Colorado should receive the SMU death sentence.

He's been a dickhead since he left Northwestern, I think. If memory serves, he kind of fucked them over when he left for CU. It's just he's now added "callous" and "unable to think before he speaks" to his resume.

[Damaramu 0]

Oh damn........Colorado isn't playing OU next year. I was looking forward to OU romping on them. Anyone on CU's schedule that's going to take them to town?

[Guest HHH123007]

You see, this is exactly the reason no one respects the WNBA...[/familyguy]

[nl5xsk1 0]

Oh damn........Colorado isn't playing OU next year. I was looking forward to OU romping on them. Anyone on CU's schedule that's going to take them to town?

There's a good chance that Colorado State University (where I went to school) is playing CU this year. I can't remember if last year was the last time that the two teams agreed to play or just the last time that they'll be playing at Invesco/Mile High. (living in Massachusetts makes it hard to follow the CSU-CU rivalry).

 

If they play, I think that CSU would take them. They barely beat us last year, and their team should be weaker b/c of this scandal (particularly if Barnett is forced to step down)