University of Minnesota athletic director Norwood Teague resigned last week after multiple complaints of sexual harassment were filed against him, including charges of groping women in public and sending lewd and lascivious text messages.
To avoid a full-blown university investigation, Teague elected to resign, admitting to the offenses after having, “entirely too much to drink.” Teague said in his statement, via the Star Tribune, “This behavior neither reflects my true character nor the values of the University.”
The second part is probably true. The first… not so much.
On Friday, Gophers basketball beat writer Amelia Rayno covered the Teague resignation. On Sunday, she became part of it.
Rayno’s story posted by the Star Tribune outlines her own experiences with Teague as a journalist covering his department.
They are horrible.
Rayno wrote about an exchange she had with Teague after attending a going-away party for a member of the communications staff in December, 2013. As she was leaving the party, Rayno explained, Teague texted her to see if she wanted to get a drink. She agreed, and things went bad fast.
Teague tried to throw his arm around me. He poked my side. He pinched my hip. He grabbed at me. Stunned and mortified, I swatted his advances and firmly told him to stop. He didn’t.
“Don’t deny,” he said, “our chemistry.”
I told him that he was drastically off base, that my only intention in being there was as a reporter – to which he replied: “You’re all strictly business? Nothing else?”
There is a line every reporter has to cross sometimes in an effort to cultivate a source. In the world of college athletics, having the occasional drink with a coach or director of athletics is maybe the equivalent putting one toe over that line; it’s not terribly appropriate for any journalist to socialize with those they cover, but the nature of the job, and the access many higher ups in college athletics are willing to give to those who do, makes the occurrence commonplace around the country.
What happened to Rayno, however is not. What happened next, is disgusting.
I walked out. He followed me. I hailed a cab. He followed me in, grabbing at my arm and scooting closer and closer in the dark back cabin until I was pressed against the door. I told him to stop. I told him it was not OK. He laughed. When I reached my apartment, I vomited.
According to Rayno’s telling, Teague did not stop there. He texted her, “Night strictly bitness,” later that evening in what could have only been taken as a total power play by a man who thought everyone in his world was a personal plaything.
(As a quick aside, what the hell, cabbie? I’m sure most cabbies get drunken hook-ups a lot in their cab and it’s the cabbie’s job to not only go from point A to point B but to do it in a way that ignores any of the goings on in the back seat, but hell if a woman is pressed against the door saying “stop” and “this is not okay” maybe it makes for you to stop and see if she is actually okay?)
It takes a lot of courage to do what Rayno did, and I don’t mean that in the context of writing her story now. She probably loved the opportunity to expose Teague as a serial harasser after all this time. The courage came on December 14, 2013, when Rayno had to go back to the athletic department and cover Teague’s teams for the next 18 months.
When I had to call Teague for a quote, he would often afterward say, “You owe me.” He suggested I travel with the Gophers summer caravan to “get more scoops.” He once asked if I was going to Dallas for the Final Four. When I replied that our newspaper was not covering it because of budget issues, he texted: “I have other options to get u there in style.’’ And when I declined to meet him if he suggested a drink he would text things like “R u pouting?” and “The colonel is coming after you.”
Let’s pause there. It’s one thing for Rayno to explain that Teague had previously called her “cute,” asking on another occasion when she rebuffed an offer to get a drink if she was “wearing pajamas” while they were texting, but the man was such a predatory megalomaniac that he called himself “the colonel”? To a reporter? And suggested he was coming after her?
It’s amazing this man didn’t get caught sooner.
Rayno’s explanation of her experience with Teague does offer reasons why she hadn’t gone public earlier, calling it “self-preservation” for someone who “didn’t want my career interrupted because of a powerful man’s misdeeds.”
Explaining the situation after Friday’s resignation is entirely believable; no one should have any doubt Rayno is sharing details of a terrible event that actually happened to her.
Going public two years ago would have been very different. First, it would have put Rayno under a microscope just as much as Teague—let’s be honest, a younger, blonde beat reporter accusing an older A.D. of harassment would have put her under a microscope far more than Teague—so despite telling her human resources department about the situation in April, 2014 after another round of inappropriate texts, Rayno decided not to make her story the story until now.
Tacked on to the bottom of Rayno’s article is a statement from University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler, who expressed his disappointment in further allegations coming forward against Teague, reiterating the University knew nothing about this until the reports that led to Friday’s resignation.
We take all reports of sexual harassment very seriously and we encourage anyone else who experienced such actions to come forward. They may remain anonymous by reporting through the UReport, our confidential reporting service at 1-866-294-8680 or online at ureport.ethicspoint.com.
That phone number better have call waiting. There’s a good chance Teague has more victims out there, now willing to step forward thanks to two anonymous university employees, and Amelia Rayno.