Former NFL cornerback Shareece Wright spoke out on Feb. 23 about his involvement in a lawsuit against a former high school athletic trainer accused of sexually assaulting Wright and 11 others at California’s Colton High School.
As ESPN reported, Wright was one of six high school football players who accused Tiffany Strauss-Gordon of sexual assault in September 2022. Morgan Stewart, the attorney representing Wright and seven others in the lawsuit, told ESPN that Strauss-Gordon’s position and her relation to the coach who had created a powerhouse team out of the California high school made conditions optimal for abuses to be carried out.
“You’ve
got football, you’ve got the coach’s daughter, you’ve got a permissive school environment where it’s allowed to happen. I mean, you’ve got sort of a perfect storm of sexual abuse that could be covered up easily.”The football player also told the outlet that the conduct of Strauss-Gordon was so well known that players and coaches referred to receiving oral sex from the trainer as “the Tiffany treatment.”
Another plaintiff, who remains anonymous, confirmed this, saying, “It was pretty open and obvious what was happening.”
Despite a statement from the Colton Unified School District saying it took decisive action following the allegations, Strauss-Gordon told investigators in 2022 that she was allowed to return to work in 2011 following an internal investigation.
According to John Manly, another of the attorneys representing the alleged victims, this is not what is supposed to happen.
“People in their own institutions rarely find themselves guilty,” Manly said. “Your duty is to report, not investigate.”
Wright, as USA Today reported, is hopeful that speaking out will change the narrative concerning men and boys who are victims of sexual assault.
He told the outlet, “I was worried about what people would say or how people would try to portray it. The narrative that we were boys and it’s not that big of a deal or is not that serious bothers me, like, the most.’’
Wright is “trying to change the narrative that when you’re a boy and you’re being molested by a female it’s not serious or it doesn’t affect your life or it’s not that bad.’’
Wright also said that his encounters with Strauss-Gordon have deeply impacted his ability to connect romantically with women.
“Just searching for that sexual high that I would get when I had these sexual encounters with [the athletic trainer] at a young age,” Wright said. “It was years of me chasing it and not being able to find it.”
He continued, “I feel like maybe I would be married at this point [if] that didn’t happen to me. And I wouldn’t have such a sexual drive in a sense and just respect my body and other women’s bodies more.”
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