By Heidi Hatch
(KUTV) The University of Utah has pulled their head swim coach Greg Winslow and suspended him in the middle of the PAC 12 swim championships in Washington. The move comes amid allegations of sexual abuse stemming from a case out of Arizona.

The university, according to their Communications Director Keith Sterling, had been left in the dark until last night when they were contacted by a blog out of Arizona. They checked with Arizona investigators and found out the campus police already knew about the allegations. Back in December, Arizona investigators contacted University of Utah police. According to Sterling, “they advised our police department they were conducting an investigation into a coach and they may come on campus for interviews. They asked our police chief not to share the info and keep it confidential.”  The police chief did just that, and that’s where the problem gets worse. 

During this same time period the University of Utah had started an internal review of coach Greg Winslow after parents had called with concerns about the coach relating to his language and dealings with a student. When the University started to dig, they apparently got more than they bargained for. Sterling told 2News, “As we were looking into that, we heard rumors about possible sexually-inappropriate contact with team members.” The university assigned a former sex crimes investigator to start talking to students. According to Sterling, 50 students were interviewed but not a one gave up any information that led them to believe there was an issue.

The charges were dropped and the case was left as rumors. That was until they were notified of impending charges out of Arizona—where a young woman has come forward and said that Winslow abused her when she was just 15. Blogger Irvin Muchnick posted on concussioninc.net the allegations.  He has quotes from the father of the young woman, now 22. "This was a completely shocking and devastating revelation," the father of the alleged victim told the blog. "We trusted this coach with our daughter, and he violated her and robbed her of her childhood, and wreaked havoc on her very being. We want her story heard, and justice served, so that this pedophile coach is held accountable. And USA Swimming has to make changes to ensure that this does not happen again, and these bright and promising kids are protected." 

The University of Utah has come up with new protocol in the wake of these allegations, saying the police must now notify them if they are aware of serious allegations like this. Greg Winslow has not yet been charged with a crime, but the school has suspended him indefinitely.

(Copyright 2013 Sinclair Broadcasting Group)
U of U Swim Coach Accused Of Sexually Abusing Teen