Road to Recovery president says he is treating sexual abuse victim of another coach at SU

The president of Road to Recovery, a group that supports victims of sexual abuse, said he is treating a victim who has been molested by another coach at Syracuse University.

Robert Hoatson, the president and co-founder of Road to Recovery, spoke on the advocates panel during the symposium "When Games Turn Grim: Can Media Cover Sports Scandals Responsibly?" on Thursday afternoon.

"By the way, I am working with a victim of another Syracuse University sport — a head coach," Hoatson said approximately halfway through the hourlong panel. "The reason I cannot tell you who it is and why is because the person is not there yet, but the person did give me permission, just yesterday, to say, "You can say that much.' And who knows, maybe he'll watch today and say, ‘Maybe I'll go a little further here,' because these stories tend to come out in pieces."

The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications held the symposium to examine the media's coverage of notorious sports scandals, specifically the recent Jerry Sandusky and Bernie Fine sex abuse cases that rocked Pennsylvania State University and SU, respectively.

When the panel was opened to the audience for a Q-and-A session, broadcast and digital journalism professor of practice John Nicholson told Hoatson his comment about the second SU coach effectively made students and faculty cast a shadow of suspicion on every head coach at the university, which was irresponsible.

"I think that's a terrible thing to do," Nicholson said. "Get some proof, then make your accusation. Throwing stuff out there is completely irresponsible and I think is counter to the purpose of trying to do something about the terrible abuse of children."

Hoatson told The Daily Orange in an interview Saturday it is likely the unnamed coach is no longer employed by the university.

"I believe he's not. This happened many years ago," he said. "We don't think he's still there."

After the panel convened, Kevin Quinn, senior vice president for public affairs for SU, released a statement.

"While the University has no information about this allegation, as soon as Mr. Hoatson's remark came to our attention, we made the police and District Attorney aware of it," Quinn said. "We encourage any victim to come forward and report abuse to the authorities."

Syracuse Police Department spokesman Sgt. Tom Connellan said in an interview after the advocates panel that Hoatson's information regarding another accused coach was unknown to SPD before Hoatson spoke during the symposium.

Connellan said SPD first received word of the situation when members of the media contacted him after Hoatson's comments.

"No one has come to us," he said. "We're just finding out about this within the past few hours."

DPS officers also called to inform Connellan of the comment immediately after it was made to the general public.

There was no official report of the situation to SPD, Connellan said. He said SPD's next step is to reach out to Hoatson.

egsawyer@syr.edu

brvannos@syr.edu

—Staff Writer Zach Brown contributed reporting to this article.