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Katie Hnida says she was raped by one of her teammates at Colorado

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  • Katie Hnida says she was raped by one of her teammates at Colorado

    New Mexico's Katie Hnida kicked a field goal against Texas State-San Marcos to become the first woman to score in a Division I college football game.


    If you thought Colorado football recruiting parties were jailbreaks, brace yourself for the allegations made by the only woman ever to play on the team.

    As a CU placekicker in 1999, Katie Hnida says she endured a kind of sexual hell you can't imagine. After being verbally abused and molested by teammates, Hnida says, she was raped by one of them.

    An honor-roll student, a homecoming queen and an honorable mention all-county kicker at Littleton (Colo.) Chatfield High, Hnida (NYE-da) had dreamed of booting for Colorado. "Football is what makes me breathe," she says. Then-coach Rick Neuheisel invited her to walk on, she accepted and then he took off, leaving her in new coach Gary Barnett's hands. "None of the players wanted her on the team," Barnett remembers. "Basically we were doing her a favor."

    On her first day of practice Hnida found out how welcome she was. She says five teammates surrounded her and verbally abused her, making sexually graphic comments. During the season players exposed themselves to her "at least five times," she says. "They'd go, 'Hey, Katie, check this out!'" One player came up from behind, she says, and rubbed his erect penis against her.

    Sometimes when the entire team was huddled up, Hnida says, players stuck their hands on her crotch or groped her breasts under her shoulder pads. "She endured more abuse than one person should have to bear," former teammate Justin Bates says. Even as she practiced, players called her vulgar names and one fired footballs at her head.

    Why didn't she tell Barnett? "Because I was terrified," she says. "He didn't want me around in the first place. I thought for sure he'd kick me off [the team]."

    The worst was yet to come. One summer night Hnida was watching TV at the house of a teammate. "He just starts to kiss me," she recalls. "I told him, 'That's not O.K.' Next thing I know he's on top of me. I told him, 'No!' But he just kept going, 'Shhhhh.' I tried to push him off me, but he outweighed me by 100 pounds." Hnida says he lifted her skirt, pushed aside her panties and penetrated her. She was a virgin. The phone rang, he reached for it, she slipped out from under him and ran.

    Why didn't she go to the police? "I was so scared of what he might do to me," she says. "And I didn't want a huge media mess. I was already carrying around so much inside me, I was numb."

    Just before the start of the 2000 season, it was clear that Hnida, sick with tonsillitis, was not going to make the roster. She says she fell into "the darkest of dark places."

    Worried for his daughter after she had finally told him about some of her hell (but not the rape), Maj. Dave Hnida, an Army surgeon currently stationed in Iraq, went to athletic director Dick Tharp and Barnett about "the cornering, the groping, the name-calling and the football-at-the-head thing," Katie's father says. He got nowhere. "Talking to Barnett was like talking to a wall."

    Neither Tharp nor Barnett recalls Dave Hnida saying anything about sexual harassment. "If I'd have heard that, I'd have jumped down somebody's throat," Barnett says. "Not one time did I ever see or hear about anybody treating her wrong. I don't believe she was sexually harassed. I don't believe our players would do that. They'd be in too much trouble with me." Barnett says he gave one player a "tongue-lashing" for making a vulgar comment to Katie.

    She dropped out of CU after her sophomore year. She says she was depressed for two years, suffered from insomnia and gave up kicking. Her dad ached for her. "Barnett went on TV and said how these [recent recruiting party] accusations have hurt his family," Dave Hnida says. "I'll show you a hurt family."

    Katie went into therapy, enrolled at a junior college and then had the guts to walk on at New Mexico in 2002. Last August she became the first woman to score in Division I football history when she kicked two PATs in the Lobos' 72-8 rout of Texas State-San Marcos.

    Meanwhile, three other women alleged they were raped by players or recruits at or following a Colorado football recruiting party in 2001 (click here for full story). There have been reports of players hiring strippers for recruits as recently as last month.

    So why is Hnida, 22, telling her story now? "Because all the news sent me back into that nightmare," she says. "It made me literally sick. I realized that until I tell my story, I can never heal."

    Hnida isn't suing Colorado or pressing charges against former teammates. "I just want to see changes made there," she says.

    She also wants a sixth-year exemption from the NCAA, so she can return to the Lobos. "We have 125 great guys on this team, and I haven't had one single incident," Hnida says. "That's because of the standard Coach [Rocky] Long sets here for behavior. There's no b.s."

    At Colorado they're majoring in b.s. The denials have piled up like cordwood. You show me a coach who maintains he's unaware of recruiting parties featuring paid strippers, of four alleged rapes, of sexual harassment claims by one of his players against other players, and I'll show you a coach who is hell-bent on not knowing.

    Makes this alum want to hide his class ring.


    Source: AP

  • #2
    there's no crying in football!

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by johnny trance
      there's no crying in football!
      You are a fucking moron

      Comment


      • #4
        eat a dick andy.

        nevermind. you'd enjoy that too much.

        Comment


        • #5
          I wouldn't want to copy your diet. You are a fucking idiot. That girl got raped and is scared for life and the best thing you can say is something that you got from that stupid movie "A league of their own"

          I hope you have a daughter one day and she is raped by the mail man

          Comment


          • #6
            i was raped by your moms at 14......not a cool way to lose your virginity, dawg.

            Comment


            • #7
              it didnt happen. you are the same ******s who think kobe is innocent. i wont say why.

              so why is colorado guilty?

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              • #8
                Trance you are an idiot and an asshole

                Comment


                • #9
                  kellie.....eat a dick you whore.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Update: Coach Punished for 'Inappropriate' Comments

                    CU coach Gary Barnett


                    Colorado football coach Gary Barnett's "inappropriate and insensitive" comments sparked the latest controversy to hit an already-reeling program.

                    Barnett was placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday night over comments he made after a former player alleged she was raped by a teammate four years ago.

                    In a hastily called, late-night news conference Wednesday, university president Elizabeth Hoffman also said she was "utterly distressed" over comments attributed to Barnett in a 2001 police report filed by another woman who said she was raped by a football player.

                    Barnett, 57, will be on paid leave while an independent committee investigates a burgeoning list of allegations involving the football program, including rapes, recruiting parties featuring alcohol and sex, escort services and hiring strippers.

                    Barnett said he disagreed with Hoffman's decision but accepted it, calling himself "a team player." He also said the police report contained some inaccuracies.

                    The suspension came one day after he criticized the on-field performance of former Colorado kicker Katie Hnida, who said she was raped by a teammate. The coach called her an "awful" player and said she couldn't "kick the ball through the uprights."

                    Hnida, who now plays for the University of New Mexico, last year became the first woman ever to score points in a Division I-A football game.

                    Ryan Johanningmeier, who was a team captain while Hnida played at Colorado, said Thursday some teammates could be "a bit nasty."

                    "However, we all get called names. I got called names," he told ABC-TV's 'Good Morning America.'

                    Johanningmeier said that when one player's comments about Hnida got too personal, Barnett "gave this guy a pretty good reprimand in front of the team, reminded us once again that this was a player on the team who needs to be treated with respect. A lot of it stopped at that point, from what I saw."

                    Hoffman called Barnett's Tuesday comments "extremely inappropriate and insensitive." She said those remarks were the main reason Barnett was put on administrative.

                    "Rape is a horrific allegation and it should be taken seriously," she said.

                    After spending much of Wednesday commenting about Barnett's remarks, Hoffman learned police had released the report that quoted an unidentified woman saying Barnett told her he "would back his player 100 percent" if rape charges were pursued. The woman declined to file charges.

                    Hoffman said she learned of the woman's rape allegation recently, but it was unclear when Barnett first knew of it.

                    The accusations involving the football program that have surfaced over the past three weeks stem from civil lawsuits filed by three women against the school. They said they were raped by players or recruits at or after an off-campus party in December 2001.

                    An adult entertainment company said CU players regularly hired strippers for recruiting parties, and the university acknowledged that an escort service was called from a cell phone that had been assigned to a former football recruiting aide.

                    No assault charges have been filed in those cases, but Boulder County prosecutor Mary Keenan said in a deposition for one of the lawsuits that she believes the football program uses alcohol and sex to entice recruits.

                    CU formed an independent investigative committee this week to look into the accusations, with the goal of issuing a report on April 30. Hoffman also said she would hire an administrator to oversee athletics, reporting directly to her and Chancellor Richard Byyny.

                    A spokesman for the investigative committee declined comment on Barnett's leave.

                    Hnida told Sports Illustrated that she was assaulted in the summer of 2000 at the home of a teammate while attending Colorado. Asked why she didn't tell police, she said she was afraid of the player and didn't want a "media mess."

                    Barnett later that day snapped at a reporter who asked him about her abilities. "It was obvious Katie was not very good. She was awful," he said. "Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There's no other way to say it."

                    During a brief news conference in Boulder late Wednesday, Barnett apologized "for answering that question in a manner where I must have come across as insensitive."

                    He said his remarks had been taken out of context or misinterpreted.

                    Hoffman, who was not present for Barnett's press conference, said the coach "was not apologetic" when she discussed his remarks with him earlier. "It was my feeling... that he did not understand the seriousness of the comments he had made the day before," Hoffman said.

                    Byyny said an interim head coach would be named, probably within 48 hours, and most likely would be an assistant coach currently on the staff.

                    Gov. Bill Owens agreed with Hoffman's decision.

                    "In view of the serious allegations concerning the CU football program, the action taken this evening by President Hoffman is both appropriate and necessary," Owens said in a statement.

                    CU athletic director Richard Tharp also supported the decision to place Barnett on leave.

                    Barnett was hired to coach Colorado's football team five years ago with the goal of ending an era of loose recruiting practices and return the team to national prominence.

                    He has led Colorado to a Big 12 Conference title and a BCS bowl game in his five seasons as head coach. But during the last two seasons, nine players were suspended for various violations of team rules, including curfew and behavior standards.

                    Barnett's contract runs through 2006.

                    Source: AP

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Dykes On Spikes

                      I am so tired of these "girls" who want to be "boys" but then get upset about the "boys behavior". Don't get me wrong, if the girl was raped then she should have pursued charges. But come on now---this girl was in the locker room with all these guys. Typical guy behavior in the locker room is to walk around naked and pull all kinds of shenanigans against each other.

                      THIS GIRL IS SHOCKED THAT SHE WAS GRABBED INAPPROPRIATELY WHILE SHE WAS INSIDE A GUYS LOCKER ROOM?????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? If this was my daughter I would definitely have filed the rape charges against the guy who did it-----but I would also tell my daughter don't expect to go into a locker room full of football players and expect they have to behave just because you think they should. It isn't going to happen. ANOTHER REASON GIRLS HAVE NO BUSINESS ON ANY TYPE OF FOOTBALL TEAM. AND THE GIRL COULDN'T PLAY TO BEGIN WITH.

                      This world is crazy, you don't really know who or what to believe. I don't know if she was raped or not but let's face it. If you go to a party, and get drunk and get 'loose' and get fucked, and regret it later, you still spread your legs and said 'ooo aaahhh ' while you were getting driven. You can't come back 4 years later after finding out that the dude that fucked you raped someone else recently and say 'oh yeah, he raped me too, 4 years ago' that's bullshit. Women need to grow up, and realize that if you say yes tonight, it doesn't mean rape tomorrow.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Trance, most of the time you say some off the wall shit, but this was just fucking out there. Kobe ain't got shit to do with what happen to that girl and it's fuckers like you who do shit to people like that, thinking "oh, I'll never get caught. Who'll believe them over me." You can fucking go to hell for saying that.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          genesis...you take yourself way the fuck too serious.

                          just chill out, smoke a bowl if necessary, and spread the gospel of peace.

                          Comment

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