Andy Mead/ISI Photos/Getty Images
Multiple women accused Rory Dames—who
resigned as head coach of the NWSL’s Chicago Red Stars in November
following allegations of emotional abuse—of verbal assault and
sexual misconduct during his time as a youth coach in the 1990s and
early 2000s.
Molly Hensley-Clancy of the Washington
Post reported Tuesday the Arlington Heights Police Department in
Illinois launched an investigation into Dames’ conduct in 1998 after
a female player said he “touched her inappropriately on her upper
thigh” and was “very verbally inappropriate.”
The player who made that allegation
decided against lodging a formal complaint against Dames at the time, saying she
only wanted to “protect other players from [Dames’] advances,” and she declined to comment to the Washington Post about Dames.
Hensley-Clancy obtained documents from
the 150 interviews conducted as part of the 1998 investigation, which
came when Dames was 25 and a key figure in the Chicago-area soccer
scene as founder of the Eclipse Select Soccer Club and head coach St.
Viator High School.
Megan Cnota, one of the players
interviewed 24 years ago, told the Post that Dames made “degrading
sexual jokes” about her and several teammates provided similar
stories, while others raised concerns about
time he spent alone with young players.
“We tried to make it come to light 25
years ago and nobody believed those teenagers,” Cnota said.
Another woman alleged Dames began “grooming” her at the age of 14 and started a sexual relationship
with her once she turned 18. She told Hensley-Clancy the way the
relationship formed made her feel there was no way out.
“But I always thought to myself,
‘This isn’t a choice for me,'” she said. “If he says come over,
then yes, in some other reality of life, maybe I could make the
choice not to. But in my life, I felt like, there wasn’t that choice
with him. If he [instant messaged] me, ‘Come over,’ it was, ‘Come
over.'”
Other players recounted a wide range of
verbal insults he used: “p–sies,” “donkeys,” “f–king
idiots,” “retarded,” “fat f–k,” “fat c–t” and “fat
ass.”
Hensley-Clancy spoke to “five women who played for Dames at St. Viator and Eclipse in the 1990s and early 2000s” who “recounted similar stories to those that girls told police in 1998, including that they were uncomfortable with the amount of time Dames spent with girls outside of soccer.”
“Looking back on it, you think, ‘What the hell is that guy doing hanging out with teenagers?'” Cnota said. “It was grooming behavior. It’s sickening.”
Dames yielded immense power as he
worked to make himself the sole connection point between his players
and college programs, “chiding coaches who reached out directly to
parents or players without going through him,” per Hensley-Clancy.
In turn, players and parents became
afraid to speak up out of fear of losing college scholarship
opportunities.
“He could single-handedly take your
future in soccer away if he wanted to,” former player Haley Leanna
told the Washington Post. “No one wanted to risk that.”
Susan Bogart, Dames’ attorney, said no
charges were ever brought against her client based on the 1998
investigation and described the claims made in the Washington Post
report as “unfounded.” She said the reviews by a sex crimes
prosecutor and a social worker also found her client had “not acted
abusively toward players.”
Bogart added the former coach “did
not and has not called players names” and argued the Post was “damaging and destroying” his reputation by moving forward with “false allegations of sexual misconduct for which there are no
facts and relying on anonymous sources.”
She also referenced a 2018
investigation by U.S. Soccer, which investigated claims brought by
NWSL players but levied no sanctions against him and allowed him to
keep coaching.
U.S. Soccer has since suspended Dames’
coaching license, a decision Bogart said came only after the
Washington Post approached the governing body with previously unreported details from the 1998
investigation.
Eclipse Select didn’t respond to
inquiries from Hensley-Clancy about whether Dames continued to hold a
position of power within the program, though the club’s current president, Mike Nesci, confirmed Dames “voluntarily ceased” coaching at the club in October.
Dames, a former college player at Saint
Louis University, had coached the Red Stars for 11 years before his
resignation.
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