Following on the heels of head coach Clint Myers’ abrupt retirement earlier this week, a new explosive story from Tom Junod and Paula Lavigne of ESPN has sent shockwaves through the sport.
With a headline that reached the ESPN television BottomLine and sat as a recommended story on the network’s website, the investigative report detailed allegations from former players, including one, Alexa Nemeth, who filed a Title IX complaint against the school.
Nemeth was cut from the Tigers’ roster following the 2017 season.
A legal representative for Nemeth, a freshman who redshirted during the 2017 season, sent a 14-page letter to Auburn school officials, as well as Alabama governor Kay Ivey, in July, a month prior to Myers’ departure. The letter, according to the ESPN report, followed the Title IX complaint with detailed allegations of former Auburn assistant and Clint Myers’ son Corey having inappropriate relations and relationships with multiple members of the softball team.
Corey Myers resigned from the Auburn coaching staff on March 30.
Blaire Bass, a former Auburn infielder now rostered at Louisville, shared screenshots that were referenced in the ESPN article. The texts, purporting to be from Corey Myers in the fall of 2015, contained suggestive remarks to the then-Tiger freshman.
Also quoted in the article was Whitney Jordan, who left the team after this past season, leaving a year of eligibility on the table to begin her career as a teacher. “No one on the outside has a clue as to what we went through,” she told ESPN.
Prior to his resignation in March, Corey Myers previously issued his resignation in September last fall. That resignation only lasted for two weeks, after Clint Myers and another coach asked some members of the team to go to the athletic department and “go fight for Corey”.
Former Tiger shortstop Haley Fagan chimed in frequently for the ESPN investigation. According to Fagan and others, and as noted in the report, it was a March 27th bus ride to the final game of the Florida series that proved to be the opening act to what would be a tumultuous 2017 year.
It was on this bus ride that an Auburn player took photos of purported intimate text messages between Corey Myers and another player on the team. A revelation of these messages to Clint Myers three days later, according to the article, led to a multi-hour “quarantine” that involved Auburn’s Senior Women’s Administrator Meredith Jenkins warning the players that they risked arrest by taking the messages, and ordered them to be deleted.
Following the so-named “quarantine”, Corey Myers resigned that same day.
An interesting note in the ESPN article included that several members of the team, including Fagan and former all-American Kasey Cooper, refused to board the team bus to play Georgia if the player who exchanged the messages with Corey Myers was also allowed to journey with them.
The Tigers finished the 2017 season with a record of 49-12 and a conference record of 17-7. The Title IX investigation continues.
You can find the full ESPN report here.
This story may be updated. Check back and stay tuned to JWOS for updates.
